The Battle of Tollana
by The Evil Author
Summary: It’s the year 2015 and Joan Rove nee Girardi is given command of her first starship.
1. Chapter 1

**The Battle of Tollana, Part 1**

**Nopporn Wongrassamee aka The Evil Author**

Summary: It's the year 2015 and Joan Rove nee Girardi is given command of her first starship.

Disclaimer: The characters and settings belong to whoever owns them. I'm just too lazy to look up who they are.

_**22 May 2015**_

_**U.S.S. Arcadia**_

_Ship's Log: The _Arcadia_ departed PC3-735 as of 0900 today. The system itself proved to be of little interest. Our science detachment was somewhat gaga over the fact that there the local asteroid belt is in fact the remains of a planet that was destroyed here less than thirty years ago. Odds are that any local Stargate was destroyed in the cataclysm._

_Note to Homeworld Security: Some of the debris here has a unique chemical and radiological composition that matches the composition of some meteors that showered Smallville Kansas thirty years ago. This is unlikely to be a coincidence. The science detachment is convinced that a starship transited from here to Earth and probably dragged some debris in its hyperdrive wake. The trail is probably long since cold now, but it might be worth looking into._

**25 December 2014**

**Girardi Residence**

**Arcadia MD**

"I've got a ship!"

At Joan's announcement, the other members of her extended family erupted into congratulations. Since joining the Air Force, it was rare that Joan got to see them all at once any more. It was good to see them.

And then Kevin stood up to propose a toast. He stood up! Revolutionary new medical treatments had been introduced since the world learned that world governments had starships and met aliens. One had repaired the old injury and allowed Joan's older brother to walk again. And no one appreciated it more than Kevin himself.

"Well, let's all toast to Joan!" Kevin said. "Captain of the starship… um…" He turned to Joan. "What's the name of your ship?"

"Believe it or not, it's called the _Arcadia_," Joan laughed. "Seriously, it is. Sometimes, I think everyone involved in space ops is cracked. There's no way that name could be a coincidence."

"Takes one to know one," Luke commented. Joan just stuck her tongue out at him in reply.

"To the _Arcadia_!" Kevin toasted.

"The _Arcadia_!" everyone chorused.

"So, Joan," Grace began after the toast. "Now that you have your own ship, are you gonna blow up any innocent aliens in the name terrestrial imperialism?" Her smile removed any sting from the accusation. Her anti-authoritarian nature had become something of an in-joke with them.

"Grace!" Joan's mother exclaimed, her tone chiding her daughter in law.

"Heck no," Joan replied, ignoring her mother. She grinned. "I'm going to blow up aliens that are guilty as sin, probably during the next alien invasion of the week."

"Okay," Grace laughed. :"Just so you know the difference."

"So what kind of ship is it?" Luke asked, his inner geek obviously hungry for details

."It's one of the new Asgard class light cruisers," Joan told him.

"Wow, really?" Luke said impressed.

"I take it we should be impressed?" Joan's father asked. "What's so special about it?"

"It's an Asgard!" Luke exclaimed. "Everything on it is entirely Earth manufactured. No components salvaged from alien wrecks or traded from more advanced races. No systems we only half understand. It even has the new modular system so that it can be customized for any mission."

"It doesn't sound safe," Joan's husband said dubiously.

"No, it's great Adam," Luke disagreed. "It means our cutting edge technology is competitive with what's out there. Or at least those dinosaurs in charge of the military think it is."

"Well as one of those dinosaurs, Luke, let me say thanks," Joan said dryly. She turned to her husband. "I'll be fine, Adam. Really."

"I worry about you," Adam replied.

"Aw, that's sweet," Joan said fondly. "But if I were you, I'd be more worried about your wandering eye."

"That was back in High School," Adam protested. He sighed. "You're never going to let me live that one down, are you?"

"Never," Joan laughed.

**Date Unknown**

**Tollana**

His name was Khyron. He was Jaffa, loyal to the god Anubis and his divine servant Zor. Currently, Khyron and several of his brethren were guarding a line of slaves as they dug through the debris of a once proud city. He also wondered what offense he had given to be assigned to this hellhole.

In his arms he carried an Eradication Rod. On most worlds, the more familiar and beloved staff weapon would have been enough. On this world, his gods had commanded that the Jaffa be armed with Rods. Any who defied the gods' command would suffer a grisly fate… and that was before the gods punished them.

No, equipping Eradication Rods were just pure wisdom. Staff weapons were simply ineffective against the local rebels. Some Jaffa thought they were ghosts, but Khyron knew they were just men, albeit men armed with strange magics that rendered them as immaterial as any ghost.

And there was one now.

Uttering oath and alarm, Khyron brought up his Rod and let loose a blast of magic blue light. The gods were with him, and the "ghost" went down in a spray of red mist. Or maybe the gods were still angry with Khyron, because several other rebels he hadn't spotted opened fire on him in reply. There were too many to dodge, and Khyron went down under a barrage of the rebel's magic.

As the world grew darker around him, he took note that his fellow guards were returning fire and holding their own despite the surprise. Perhaps Khyron's warning had made the difference, spoiling the rebels' attack before they were fully in position. He also noticed that the slaves, unable to run because they were chained together, had done the sensible thing and fallen to the ground.

But none of this concerned Khyron all that much as he went to meet his gods.

**23 February 2015**

**Edwards Air Force Base, California**

Modern gravity manipulation technologies had rendered runways obsolete. With the ability to defy Earth's gravitational pull, there was no need to run air over wings to generate lift. Even upgraded civilian jet liners which had stored their fuel in the wings were replacing the wings with space saving designs.

Still, even if air- and spacecraft didn't require miles of pavement to take off and land anymore, all that premade flatness was still useful. You could park a lot of ships on one old style runway, a not trivial need when gravity technology seemed to promote inflated ship sizes.

As such, the _U.S.S._ _Arcadia_ was currently parked on the open tarmac at Edwards Air Force Base. Its 253 meter long bulk practically gleamed under the California sun. This week was packing week as the ship was taking on supplies and personnel for its first mission. As such, everything from food crates to mechanics tools was laid out on the ground around the ship in neat, meticulous order for Joan to look at.

"Colonel Rove?"

Joan looked up from the inventory list in her hand. Part of being a commanding officer in any branch of the United States military was that the CO was quite literally responsible from everything. Joan had to go through and sign for every piece of equipment, ammunition, and expendable item that would be going aboard her ship. Every. Single. Thing. God help you if you sign for something without verifying first that the item actually existed and it later turned up "missing".

Speaking of which…

The man who had called for her attention was a young airman, one of the many enlisted personnel who worked at Edwards. There was nothing particularly descript about him, was Joan as her eyes automatically dropped to scan his nametag. There, printed plain as day, was printed GOD.

"Commander Ford says there's something that needs your attention," God added.

Joan glanced over at Lieutenant Gorman and Gunnery Sergeant Apone. The two marines did not appear to find the supposed "Airman" as unusual in anyway. If anything, Gorman looked annoyed at the interruption of the Marine equipment inspection. Apone looked as if he had seen this all before and was resigned to delay.

"Take five, gentlemen," Joan told them, tucking her inventory list under an arm. "I'll be right back as soon as I've straightened out whatever's gone wrong. Um, Airman, lead the way."

"This way, ma'am," the airman replied.

"How do you do that?" Joan hissed when they were out of earshot.

"Why, Joan, you know the answer to that," Airman God replied serenely.

"So what do you want this time?" Joan asked, annoyed. "I'm kind of busy, You know." Doing inventories already take way too long without throwing in whatever errands You want me to run."

"I'm just here to take you to your executive officer," God told her. "Nothing more and nothing less."

"Sure you are," Joan said knowingly.


	2. Chapter 2

**The Battle of Tollana, Part 2**

**Nopporn Wongrassamee aka The Evil Author**

_**30 May 2015**_

_**U.S.S. Arcadia**_

_Ship's Log: We had a First Contact today of sorts. We encountered a small ovoid starship roughly a third the size of the _Arcadia_ named the _Jupiter 2_. Given that the Goa'uld who have impersonated gods for several thousand years, the name itself wasn't all that unusual. What was strange was that the people on board, a nuclear family named the Robinsons an two unrelated crew, claimed to be from approximately two hundred years in the future, only not our future since Earth isn't supposed to have starships already._

_Imagine my surprise when our records indicated that we've had previous run-ins with time travel and alternate universes._

_In any case, the Robinsons have agreed to return to Earth. We'll be towing the _Jupiter 2_ home before continuing our survey. The delay shouldn't be longer than a week. I've attached the science detachment's preliminary analysis of the Robinson's 23__rd__ century technology. It seems the eggheads were impressed with some of the equipment the Robinsons have._

_In the meantime, I've been getting reports that Dr. Smith - one of the _Jupiter 2_'s passengers – has been bugging the engineering department. It's all they can do to keep him from taking apart the ZPM to see how it works. Hopefully, this doesn't become a problem._

**23 February 2015**

**Edwards Air Force Base, CA**

"Commander Ford, what seems to be the problem?"

"Lieutenant Colonel Rove," Commander Ford greeted. He nodded to the small gaggle of people with him. Since they were all in civilian dress, Joan deduced that this must be the _Arcadia's_ science contingent. "There's been a last minute change in the personnel roster."

By unspoken agreement, Joan and Commander Jonathan Ford never called each other "sir" or "ma'am". When speaking to each other, they called each other by their last names or when being formal, used their ranks. Even then, Ford always used Joan's full rank of Lieutenant Colonel instead of simply abbreviating it to Colonel as most subordinates do. They were both very, very careful never to do anything that might be implied as a snub or gloat.

This was because the two of them were technically the same rank despite Joan having the coveted CO position. As Joan understood it, interservice politicking had designated the _Arcadia_ as an Air Force commanded. However, since starships became public knowledge, the Navy had been providing a large number of trained personnel and a number of Navy officers had since graduated to starship command. Being the senior service in space, the Air Force viewed the Navy as interlopers on their domain and only tolerated it because they needed the crews for Earth's rapidly expanding space fleet. This dual service command tended to confuse outsiders. A good example was that a Naval Captain outranked an Air Force Captain by three grades.

There was some talk of merging the Air Force and Navy, but so far both services were completely opposed to the idea. Meanwhile, the Air Force/Navy rank confusion had become something of a running joke among American civilians and foreign allies alike.

Still, Joan and Ford had a reasonably friendly working relationship. Ford was a competent officer who knew his business. He certainly wasn't a bumbling political appointee. And Joan liked to think he thought the same about her. He certainly gave no indication that he thought she was an idiot.

"Ah, Captain. Good. Perhaps you can help clear up this little bit of red tape," said a handsome, red haired woman with a British accent. Joan recognized her as Doctor Kristin Westphalen, biologist and _Arcadia's_ chief scientist.

"Lieutenant Colonel," Joan corrected. "I'm a Lieutenant Colonel, Doctor, or just 'Colonel' if that's too much of a mouthful."

"But isn't a ship commander supposed to be called a 'Captain'?" Doctor Westphalen asked.

"You'll have to ask the Pentagon that one," Joan answered. "But I think they're still arguing about it. What seems to be the problem here?"

"Some _politician_," Westphalen said the word in a tone that equated the word with 'vermin' – "has decided to muck up with my perfectly good working team by replacing one of my people with some random political hack." She glared at Joan as if somehow this was her fault.

Joan turned to Ford.

"He's on the personnel roster," Ford said defensively, holding up said roster.

"I don't care," Westphalen argued. "I want my physicist back, Captain, and I demand you do something about it."

"Look, Doctor," Joan said as diplomatically as she could. "I don't control who the U.N. assigns to my ship. Heck, the Pentagon doesn't control that except insofar that certain regulations and requirements be met."

"Yes," Westphalen said scathingly. "I'm sure you don't, Captain."

"Look, are you sure he's such a bad guy?" Joan asked. In the back of her mind, Joan wondered what Westphalen's problem was. The Doctor had seemed like a calm and level headed person the few previous times they had met. The way she was acting now seemed to imply that Westphalen thought _Joan_ had engineered this last minute replacement. "Who is he anyway?"

"Actually," a familiar voice called out from the back of the small crowd of scientists and lab techs, "I would be the random political hack in question." Joan's head whipped around and she watched in shock as her brother and his wife made their way to the front.

"Luke?! Grace?! What in God's name are you two doing here?"

"I'm your new exotic physics expert, Joan," Luke explained self consciously.

"The hell you are!" Joan replied. All thought of calm, military decorum evacuated from her mind.

"I take it you didn't know about this, Captain?" Westphalen asked. Before, Westphalen had been livid; now, the good doctor now seemed amused by Joan's reaction. Not that Joan noticed. She had more important things to worry about.

"No I didn't," Joan snapped. She turned back to Luke. "Look, you are not coming with us. The Arcadia has been assigned a survey mission. You know what that means? We're going to be away for months on end poking around the back end of beyond and God only knows what we're going to run into. I am NOT telling Mom and Dad that I got you killed out there."

"Which is exactly why you need me out there," Luke argued back. "Despite what Doctor Westphalen may think, I do know my physics, especially the kind usually used by alien technology."

"You're an engineer," Westphalen said, as if being one were only a few degrees higher than being a politician on the ick meter.

"Yeah, I'm an engineer," Luke agreed. He pointed to a refrigerator sized crate nearby. "But I also designed the MiniGate you'll be field testing. I brought it with me."

"You have a working MiniGate?" Westphalen asked, surprised. Her eyes lit up, impressed.

"MiniGate? What's a MiniGate?" Joan asked, thrown off by the sudden change of topic. "I don't recall that on my inventory list."

"It's a last minute addition too," Luke answered. "A MiniGate is a Stargate about the size of a dinner plate. It creates a wormhole connection to a dedicated counterpart MiniGate here on Earth. With a MiniGate, you'll have a completely secure broadband net connection with Earth no matter where in the galaxy you go. Best of all, it uses a completely different class of wormhole than the regular Stargate, so using the MiniGate won't interrupt normal SGC operations."

"We can build Stargates now?" Joan asked. "Then why not build a full sized gate?"

"Ah, well, we haven't quite licked the part about sending matter through yet," Luke admitted.

"According to the literature," Westphalen added thoughtfully, "if you tried to send a material object through a MiniGate, it will come out the other side as a shower of hard gamma radiation. It's a rather, ah, energetic example of E equaling Em Cee Square."

Joan winced at the thought of such an accident happening aboard her ship.

"But don't worry," Luke said quickly. "The MiniGate's kept in a sealed vacuum chamber at all times."

"Captain, I've changed my mind," Westphalen said. "This man is welcome on my team. I withdraw my protest."

"Wait a minute, I haven't withdrawn mine!" Joan objected. "The MiniGate can come. Luke, you're staying on Earth."

"Hey! We're like a package deal," Luke objected. "If I don't come, neither does the MiniGate."

"Okay, I can live without it," Joan snapped back.

"Captain…" Westphalen began.

"Look," Joan said, thinking furiously. "The military has very definite regs about family serving together on the same ship. We don't do it, period. And there's very good reasons why we don't. Ford, back me up here."

"Well, they are on the list," Ford said slowly, clearly unsure that he wanted to get in the middle of this. "On the other hand, Rove, you are right about the regulations. To get on board, your brother has to have special dispensation, and those are next to impossible to get."

"Oh yeah," Grace said, speaking for the first time. "You wouldn't believe the paperwork I had to wade through after I asked my boss for this gig."

"Say what?" Joan was feeling punchy, like she had gone one too many rounds of hand to hand training. Dammit, Joan was supposed to be better at handling surprises than this. It was how she got this command. "Grace? You got Luke onboard my ship?"

"Yep," Grace said smugly.

"Grace, you run errands for a bunch of ivory tower scholars," Joan said slowly. "What are they called again, how do they have enough pull to get Luke on my ship, and why are you so blasé about sending your husband so far away from home for months on end?"

"In order, Watchers," Grace began, ticking off her fingers one by one. "You'd be surprised. And I'm coming with you guys."

"You're coming with us?" Why was Joan so surprised at this bit of news?

"Yeah," Grace said. She was, in Joan's opinion, being way too cheerful about this. "I'm your new security consultant."

"I have two platoons of trained Marines. What do I need a security consultant for?"

"Well, I'll bet you none of those Marines can detect an alien disguised as a human just by looking," Grace told her. At Joan's incredulous stare, Grace grinned and tapped the side of her head. "Little talent I have. If it's anything other than a bog standard human, I can sense it right away."

"You're _hok'taur_?"

"Well there you go with the labels…" Grace began, pretending to be offended.

"Wait, wait, never mind that," Joan said quickly. "If you can sense nonhumans, what about this Airman?"

"What Airman?"

Joan looked around. Like any lower enlisted who could help it, the Airman who had brought Joan over here had managed to disappear from the company of irate flag officers. The fact that the "Airman" in question had been God apparently didn't change this particular fact of military life. He was nowhere to be seen on the flat, wide open tarmac.

That was so typical of Him.

**Date Unknown**

**Tollana**

"Narim."

"Gloval, how did the raid go?"

"We lost most Fokker's team," Gloval reported sadly. "They were detected before they could get into position."

"Damn those Jaffa," Narim muttered. He was so very tired. Fourteen years, Narim thought. They had been at this for fourteen years, fighting and hiding from their alien conquerors. What did the humans of Earth call it again? Gorilla warfare? "Fokker?"

"He made it back, injured but alive," Gloval said. "He's being treated now."

"That's something at least. What about your team?"

"No casualties. We got lucky there." Gloval looked regretful. "Fokker's early attack drew off most of the guards. It's also why he had so many losses. We got the Tel'tak. I hope it was worth it."

"It will be," Narim replied. "With the Tel'tak, we now have everything to strike a major blow against the Goa'uld here."


	3. Chapter 3

**The Battle of Tollana, Part 3**

**Nopporn Wongrassamee aka The Evil Author**

_**16 April 2015**_

**U.S.S. Arcadia**

_Ship's Log: The first stop on our galactic survey was Abydos. According to the SGC records, Abydos was last visited eleven years ago by SG-1 right after the semi-ascended Goa'uld Anubis "destroyed the planet"._

_However, the planet Abydos is still there. And we confirmed that it is Abydos by taking pictures of the fifty kilometer wide crater with the newly born volcano at the bottom. Not only that, Abydos is not a "desert planet". It actually has oceans, forests, and grasslands just like Earth. However, Abydos is just recovering from a nuclear winter caused by all the dirt thrown into the upper atmosphere when Anubis zapped the planet._

_There are even human cities still present although they're all well away from the blast zone. The Abydonians had been living here for more than three thousand years. It shouldn't have been a surprise that they spread over the planet beyond that first city by the Stargate. The biggest one is in the delta of a once fertile river valley as big as the Mississippi or the Nile. I say "once fertile" because the nuclear winter has not been kind to them although they're managing to get by._

_I chose to do the meet and greet thing with this same river civilization, but we weren't able to get much information from them though. Anubis' zapping the planet seems to have resulted in a fundamentalist resurgence of Goa'uld worship and we "Tau'ri" have become something of a devil figure. There were riots when we told them who we were, so I've cut short any research on the local civilizations. Maybe if we come back in a few years, the Abydonians will be more welcoming of visitors._

_Note to Homeworld Security: Why is it that no one has visited Abydos in the eleven years since the last SGC mission here? The_ Prometheus _was actually built before Anubis attacked Abydos and all her initial test flights were longer than the mere twelve lightyears between Earth and Abydos. How many other supposedly "destroyed" planets are actually out there?_

**7 July 2015**

**CO's Quarters**

**Module C**

**U.S.S. Arcadia**

**Hyperspace**

Their next stop was Tollana.

Although the _Arcadia_ was equipped with a Zero Point Module as its primary power source, the ZPM was an Earth-made knock off that wasn't nearly as powerful as a genuine Ancient ZPM. Hence, the Arcadia couldn't zip from destination to destination in the mere minutes like some of the old ships that had actual Ancient ZPMs installed. It took hours or even days to get from place to place.

In a way, this was a blessing in disguise. Long hyperspace transits afforded the crew time to look up any info they had on a target star system and plan their survey accordingly. Joan was currently reviewing the records that SGC had of Tollana. What leapt right out at her was that Tollana was another of those planets "presumed destroyed with no survivors". A close reading revealed to Joan that no one actually knew if this was true. In fact, all anyone actually knew for sure was that the planet no longer had a Stargate.

As Joan reread another old report, she was also half listening to the flat screen in her wall. In regular "screen saving" mode, it acted like a window, showing whatever vista was actually out there. At the moment though, Joan had it set to the Arcadia's unclassified net. The _Arcadia_ actually had three separate computer networks. The secure net was where all ship operations were done from tactical combat to writing reports. The science net was primarily in the Module A labs, kept separate in case something escaped from confinement there and wanted to hack the system. And the unclassified net was for any non-official use, primarily crew morale and entertainment.

Right now, the civilian running the unclassified net, one Lucas Wolenczak, was streaming _Star Trek V_ on the net's TV channel as part of a movie marathon. As Kirk was going to meet "God", Joan idly wondered what Kirk would have made of the real thing had he run into Him.

"What does God need with a starship?"

"Starships are cool," God replied. Joan's head snapped up. That wasn't part of the movie! "And there's no starship cooler than the _Enterprise_. Although, Joan here might disagree. What do you say, Joan?"

"Don't you have anything to do other than ruining fond childhood memories?" Joan replied, ignoring the question.

"As I recall, you called it two hours of your life wasted for no reason," God replied serenely. He turned to the on screen Kirk. "Take five, Jimmy. I'll be a few minutes."

"Sure," Kirk replied. "No problem." At that, a couple of stage hands appeared from off screen and provided Kirk with a newspaper and a fold out chair. Kirk sat down and began flipping through the paper.

"Yes, and I have very fond memories of those two hours," Joan said, ignoring the byplay. "So is this a courtesy visit or do You have something You want me to do?"

"Joan, you're way too young to be so cynical," God told her.

"Sorry," Joan said, her tone not at all apologetic, "but it's kind of hard not to be cynical when reading report after report of aliens pretending to be divine beings. And that includes ascended Ancients and Ori who are the closest thing to actual 'gods' that anyone's actually met... except for You and me."

"Oh, go ahead and ask, Joan," God told her. Of course, He knew what she was getting at.

"So are You really God or just another ascended being?" Joan asked, finally giving voice to the doubts that had been growing since this mission had started.

"Now, I could say I'm either one," God said gravely, "but in the end, you're going to have to decide for yourself whether you really believe I am God or not. Although after all the time we've known each other, I'm hurt that you have to ask."

"That's not an answer!"

"I never said it was," God replied. "Now don't let me keep you. You have to get your crew ready for the Tollana survey after all."

"We're as ready as we can be," Joan protested. "We've already done system surveys a dozen times already. My people know what they're doing."

"You should never get complacent, Joan," God told her, sounding for all the world like one of her instructors at West Point. "Are you sure you've done everything you can to prepare? Think about it. I'm sure you'll come up from something." He turned away from Joan. "Okay, Jimmy, I'm ready to go again."

"Finally," Kirk replied impatiently as he looked up from his paper. "Where were we again?"

"It's right before the part where I go 'Grr. Argh.'"

**7 July 2015**

**Zor's Flagship**

**Tollana system**

Zor stood on the bridge of his flagship, gazing out the window wall at the planet below. He could truly say that all he surveyed was his. Of course, all that Zor had to his name was a mere two ships, a small fleet (by Goa'uld standards) or support craft, and a single planet that was still in ruins some eleven years after being conquered.

Anubis had originally put Zor in charge of Tollana after Tanith had been called elsewhere. While the Tollans were no longer a threat, they still had technologies that Anubis did not. Zor had been tasked to recover any useful technology from the ruins of Tollana's cities.

And then everyone forgot Zor existed.

Anubis had vanished. Whether he was dead or merely hiding, Zor didn't know. Even so, Zor maintained the fiction that he was still loyal to Anubis no matter how galling it was. That made it easy to filter all news of the outside universe coming in.

That in the end, had turned out to be the course of wisdom. Through eavesdropping on interstellar communications, Zor had heard of System Lords massacred and deposed, the coming of the Ori, and worst of all, the creation of the Free Jaffa Nation. Zor shuddered inside at the thought of what his Jaffa would do if they learned that the natural order of things in the galaxy had been overturned.

No, it was best to remain here in this system and fortify it as best he could. He would continue to build his strength until such time that he felt confident to begin conquering worlds again.

But first, he had those pesky rebels to deal with. With their phase technology, they had been able to strike at his forces practically at will until Zor had equipped his forces with Transphase Eradication Rods. Still, the phasing gave the rebels an advantage over his troops, but the Tollans simply did not have enough of the devices or Zor's problems with them would have been a thousand times worse.

Now, the Tollan rebels were only a nuisance, but Zor only had so many Jaffa – all of them men - and it would be a several more years before the first children from breeding farms were old enough to commit to battle. Zor would prefer to crush the rebels sooner than that.

Speaking of which, the shields of Zor's ship rippled as if something struck them. As he watched, a tiny Tel'tak decloaked, tumbling out of control from the impact point.

Perfect, Zor thought. Everything was going according to plan.

**7 July 2015**

**Bridge**

**U.S.S. Arcadia**

**Hyperspace**

"Pilot," Joan called out as she sat down in her seat. "Time to STL transition?"

"Ah, twelve minutes and counting, ma'am," Captain Jeannette Devereaux, callsign "Angel", replied. Despite all arguments to the contrary, all United States starship drivers were called pilots and all pilots were Air Force fighter jocks. The Navy were pushing to have their own aviators in the pilot's seat, but the Air Force just refused to budge on this issue.

"Good, it's not too late then," Joan said. She stabbed the shipwide intercom button on her control panel. "All hands, this is the C.O." Joan began. "Battlestations!"

Everyone on the bridge jerked up in surprise, and turned to stare at Joan incredulously.

"Well, what are you all waiting for?" Joan snarled in her best commanding officer's tone. "Get to it!"

**Module A, Conference Room 113**

"That woman can NOT be serious!" Doctor Westphalen said, scowling at the wall speaker. Her staff meeting had been interrupted by Lieutenant Colonel Rove's unexpected announcement. "We're still in hyperspace. No one fights a ship battle in hyperspace! Everyone knows that!"

"By the clock, we're almost to Tollana," said Colonel's brother mused aloud. "Maybe Joan's expecting trouble."

"Oh, please," Wolenczak scoffed. "This is probably just another drill these military guys are so find of."

"Well, if it is, I find it to be in bad taste," Westphalen sniffed disdainfully. "She should have at least checked with us to make sure no important work is being interrupted."

Luke hardly considered a boring as hell meeting that had run overtime due to petty bickering as "important work". Fortunately, he was wise enough not to say so to his immediate Westphalen's face. Maybe he could get out of this meeting early. For once, might be able to make Joan's unpredictable command style to his advantage.

"Um, shouldn't we get to our stations?" Luke asked hesitantly.

"Absolutely not!" Westphalen snorted. "I refuse to bow to that… that tyrant's whims!"

**Module B, Marine Armory**

"Move it, Marines!" Gunny Apone ordered. "Grab your gear and suit up! We're on the clock here!"

"What do you guys think this is, another drill?" PFC Nathan West asked as he donned the latest in Marine body armor. The armor was sweet piece of high technology studded with sensors, sealable against vacuum, and resistant to both bullets and energy weapons. It could almost be called power armor, but the internal motors were only powerful enough to compensate for the suit's weight. Anything stronger would have been too bulky and interfered with the wearer's movement.

"Yeah, it does seem like the Colonel's style," Corporal Dwayne Hicks agreed as he donned his helmet.

"Less yapping and more moving, Marines!" Gunny shouted.

**Module B, Hangar Deck**

"Hey, Maverick," Lieutenant Todd Marshal called, testing the communications gear as part of the pre-flight checklist for his F-314 aerospace fighter. Due to lack of space and the two Marine dropships the fighters shared the cramped hangar with, the Arcadia only carried two actual F-314s. "You think we're actually going to be launched?"

"I doubt it, Maniac," his wingman, Lieutenant Christopher Blair replied as he ran his own pre-flight checks. "The eggheads are going to want to replace our missiles with recon probes before they let us go anywhere."

"Yeah, you're probably right."

**Bridge**

"Rove, all stations report ready at battlestations," Commander Ford said. "Well, except for the science department."

"Of course they didn't," Joan replied, rolling her eyes in exasperation. "I should really talk to them about that. But thanks for the update, Ford."

"Not a problem," Ford said. "Still, a little warning ahead of time would be nice for once."

"But the entire point of a surprise drill is that it's a surprise," Joan explained, sounding like she was quoting someone. Before she could explain further, a door opened and Grace Girardi strolled onto the bridge.

"Hey, Joan," Grace greeted. "What's with the battlestations?"

"Grace, shouldn't you be strapped into a seat somewhere?" Joan asked, tugging at her own seat belt in emphasis.

"I'm a free spirit," Grace replied, totally unconcerned. "I go where I please."

"Five seconds to STL!" Deveraux announced. "Four!"

"Seatbelts save lives," Joan argued.

"Three!"

"Seatbelts are a symbol of oppression," Grace returned.

"Two!"

"You could fall down and break your neck if something hits us," Joan countered.

"One!"

"You worry too much, Joan," Grace began. "After all…"

"Mark!"

"…what could possibly happen?" Grace finished as hyperspace swirly cleared from the main view screen, giving them heir first look at Tollan space. "HOLY SHIT!!!"

**Captured Tel'tak**

**Tollan Space**

"What happened?" Narim demanded.

"We didn't pass through the shields," Fokker replied as he fought with the controls. "The Goa'uld has obviously upgraded the shields. He obviously anticipated us trying to penetrate them while phased."

"Both phase and cloak are disabled too," Gloval added. "We're being targeted."

The control panel beeped, and then the Goa'uld's image appeared on the Tel'tak's windscreen. "Greetings, rebels, I am Zor, your god!" the Goa'uld announced. "Know that your doom has been foretold since the beginning. Now you shall…"

"Great, he wants to gloat," Narim grumbled. "Can we get away while he talks?"

"Doubtful," Gloval grunted. "We have engine damage too. He'll just destroy us before we get very far."

So close, Narim thought. They were so close. If they could have boarded Zor's ship undetected, they could have destroyed it from the inside. Now the best hope the Tollan Resistance had had evaporated.

"…no hope, no allies," the Goa'uld continued to gloat. "There is no one who can help you now!"

At that moment, Narim spotted a hyperspace window open on the other side of Zor's ship. Although he didn't recognize the design, the new ship was most definitely not Goa'uld made. Narim didn't get to see much of it however.

This was because a split second after it dropped out of hyperspace, the new ship vanished behind the massive bulk of Zor's vessel and rammed it nose first.


	4. Chapter 4

**The Battle of Tollana, Part 4**

**Nopporn Wongrassamee aka The Evil Author**

_**19 June 2015**_

**U.S.S. Arcadia**

_Ship's Log: Kobol, identified as PK0-BLX on the Abydos cartouche, holds a rather special place in my heart. Sure, it's just another world that the Goa'uld misplaced some slaves on, the descendents of whom went on to found twelve colonies that ultimately got nuked by their own creations. And yes, genocide is a tragedy, all the more so because the Cylons were naïve children ruled by their whims and impulses._

_Maybe it's selfish of me. My family benefited from the holocaust at the cost of billions of lives. The arrival of the refugee fleet seven years ago forced Project Bluebook to become public, without which my career would probably have been limited to flying jets for a few years and then maybe a career as an airline pilot. A steady stream of disillusioned, refugee Cylons provided the biotechnology so that my older brother can walk again._

_But as I read over old SGC reports, who on Earth can't say that they haven't benefited from large scale destruction wrought throughout the galaxy and beyond? Stars exploded, worlds burned, and multiple sentient species rendered extinct, and all to our benefit. Although being religious is not exactly encouraged in a space fleet that regularly fights aliens pretending to be gods, I truly and firmly believe in a benevolent God, but sometimes I wonder about His methods._

_And to any arm chair analyst back home, yes, I am padding this report. Our visit to Kobol lasted all of two minutes. I can safely confirm that the Cylons out here are still shooting at each other, because we dropped out of hyperspace right between two fleets shooting at each other. Thanks to the SI fields and CPT Devereaux's quick reflexes, we jumped back into hyperspace as fast as possible._

_Still, two minutes got us some interesting data. That special science sensor dome is amazing; despite Kobol being lousy with naquada and only having two minutes to work, the science detachment manage to locate Kobol's Stargate; it's buried of course. We also got some hard data on Cylon basestars and raiders. We actually found a largely intact raider that some how wedged itself in between modules B and C and evidence that several others had splattered themselves on our hull. According to the sensor logs, we flew right through a Raider vs. Raider dogfight._

_It's a good thing that space is big. A freak accident like that just can't happen twice_.

**7 July 2015**

**Tollan Space**

The drop from hyperspace had been well planned in advanced by the _Arcadia_ crew. The general policy when arriving at an unknown but potentially hostile world was to drop out close enough to get decent sensor readings, but far enough to react to anything hostile that might be on or around the planet. It was simple common sense after all. Most planetary defenses were placed on planet or in close orbit. This usually included ships. And space, even the space in which a planet was still plainly visible to the naked eye, was a mind boggling volume. Even if something was orbiting Tollana in a very high orbit, the chances of dropping out of hyperspace near it were vanishingly small.

"Vanishingly small" however, was not "nonexistent".

The Goa'uld Zor was well aware of how advanced the Tollans had been. It was not outside the realm of possibility that the free Tollans might cobble something together that could shoot down one of his starships, even with the advanced shields Anubis had put on them. So he placed his ships well away from the surface on polar orbits that he changed every day. Zor even had a Jaffa at the helm at all times in the unlikely event that he needed to cut and run. In theory, it was nigh impossible for anyone to sneak up on and surprise him.

Of course, this all depended on the universe and the laws of probability playing fair.

When the little Tau'ri ship dropped out of hyperspace, it was already practically on top of Zor's flagship. Even then, there was a chance to avoid collision. A skilled pilot with quick reflexes might have been able to evade, turning and twisting their ship to avoid contact. If the Tau'ri pilot immediately adjusted course slightly up or down, or the Jaffa helmsman tilted his vessel just so, the two ships would have sailed right past each other without any physical contact at all. If they had been really good, even their shields wouldn't have touched each other.

As it so happened, both pilots were very good, the best both ships had available. Devereaux hauled back on her control stick at the right time. The Jaffa pilot spotted the Tau'ri ship instantly and immediately attempted to dodge the smaller vessel.

Unfortunately, they both dodged in the same direction.

The _Arcadia_ actually had more advanced shields than the Goa'uld flagship. But the Goa'uld flagship was far larger and what it lacked in sophistication, it made up in brute force. The _Arcadia_ punched right through, overwhelming and bringing down the Goa'uld's shields in a single blow. The action cost the Arcadia her own shields, but her SI fields remained up.

Structural Integrity Fields were a new technology being added to Earth's ships. They increased a ship's ability to resist damage, but the cost was flexibility. Unlike shields, armor enhanced by SI fields couldn't discriminate between friendly and hostile emissions; they literally blocked everything within the limits of the power they could put out. As near as Earth's researchers could ascertain, no one else in the known universe used SI fields if they could make shields, not even the Ancients or the now departed Asgard who clearly knew of the technology.

So instead of doing a poor imitation of an accordion on the other ship's hull, the _Arcadia_ punched right through the armored hull. The sheer toughness of the hull resisted the _Arcadia's_ passage, slowing it down just enough so that when the wide, flat block that was Module A reached the hole, it forced the _Arcadia_ to a bone jarring but not lethal stop.

**Module A**

_**U.S.S. Arcadia**_

"Is everyone okay?" Westphalen called out as everyone picked themselves up off the floor.

A flurry of replies came back. There were mostly bruises and cuts from things like flying pens. The worst injury was Doctor Jones, her archaeologist. He had smacked his head on the corner of the briefing table. The injuries might have been worse if the military's silly insistence on bolting all the furniture to the deck. In retrospect, it no longer seemed so silly.

"What the hell happened?" someone asked.

"Felt like we hit something," Lucas Wolenczak replied.

"Well, I'm going to call the Captain and demand what she thinks she's doing," Westphalen growled.

"Hang on, Doctor Westphalen," Luke Girardi said. "Before we bother Joan, shouldn't we see what's going on first?"

"Hey, not a bad idea," Wolenczak agreed. He went over to a computer terminal on one wall. Usually, that computer was only used to project large, fully three dimensional holographic presentations using the latest version of Microsoft Office. But it was tied into the ship's science net, so there was no real reason why they couldn't use it for other things. "We've got our very own private sensor array. Let's take a look around."

A few commands and the scientists got their first look at Tollan space. Several people gasped in horror or swore angrily at what they saw.

"Snakes," Jones muttered. "Why did it have to be snakes?"

**Bridge**

_**U.S.S. Arcadia**_

"A _dreadnaught_?" Joan repeated, not quite believing the report.

Both the Goa'uld and the Free Jaffa referred to their radially symmetric capital ships as Ha'tak. However, although all Ha'tak usually followed a similar design, they came in such a wide range of sizes that analysts on Earth had started dividing up Ha'tak into subclasses and tagging the subclasses with more familiar terms.

The dreadnaught was the largest Ha'tak class. They were a rarity, only a handful had ever been seen, and all had been controlled by Goa'uld System Lords. Even then, only the System Lords with the largest fleets could actually afford the resources to build one. When a dreadnaught was spotted, they were almost always accompanied by a fleet of lesser Ha'tak. The last one ever seen had been destroyed in Earth orbit a decade ago by the Antarctic base.

"Yes, Ma'am," Lieutenant Commander Hitchcock - Joan's chief engineer - confirmed. Studying the display, Joan saw that the dreadnaught was a saucer shape roughly 2300 meters in diameter with six projections extending out another 700 meters evenly spaced around the dreadnaught's rim. "This," Hitchcock added, point at one of the projections, "is one very big gun backed by what looks like its very own dedicated naquada reactor. It's a brute force answer to all the big guns we and the Ori have been running around with. Assuming standard Goa'uld plasma gun technology scales up this far, one of these babies could have killed us in only two, maybe three hits."

"Hey, don't mind me," Grace interjected, her voice slightly muffled by the bloody handkerchief she was holding to her nose. The impact had launched Grace's unsecured self face first into a wall. "I'll just stay here and bleed to death."

"O'Neill!" Joan called, ignoring her griping friend. She had already ascertained that Grace was fine except for a minor nosebleed.

"Ma'am," answered her communications officer, Lieutenant Tim "no relation to the famous Jack" O'Neill.

"Get on the horn and find out who these people are," Joan told him. "If they're hostile, I want to know ASAP. If they're friendly or a first contact, offer them our apologies and tell them we'll try to extricate our ship from theirs as soon as we can."

The deck suddenly seemed to roll as if the Arcadia was a wet navy boat on rough seas.

"No go, Ma'am," Devereaux told Joan. "We are well and truly stuck."

**Tollan Tel'tak**

"The shield's down!" Narim realized immediately. "Fokker, take us in now!"

As Fokker wrestled the damaged Tel'tak around, Narim contemplated the alien ship. Narim didn't know who it belonged to, but its arrival was incredibly fortuitous for the Tollans. It had also cut Zor's transmission, so that Narim no longer had to look at that purple haired freak.

The new ship's impact had transferred a great deal of inertia into the Goa'uld ship, imparting a slow rotation around the Goa'uld ship's polar axis. The rotation brought the smaller vessel's impact point into Narim's line of sight. Shockingly, the new ship was still intact even though its nose was buried inside the larger ship's hull.

The larger ship stopped rotating, then visibly wobbled. From the way the smaller ship shifted in its hole, it was obviously trying to wriggle free. Narim could not see any progress there. Curious, Narim zoomed the view screen in on the new ship and was shocked when he spotted a familiar sigil painted on its hull. It was impossible. That ship was far too advanced to belong to…

"Narim, the unknown vessel is identifying itself as an _Earth_ ship," Gloval announced. From his tone, he too wasn't quite believing what he was seeing and hearing. "They're also requesting our identification and intentions." He paused. "Actually, they're requesting the Goa'uld's identification and intentions. It's like they don't know who runs that Ha'tak."

"It's a Goa'uld ship," Narim said. "How can they NOT know?"

"Uh," Fokker said nervously, "you two might want to know that the Earth ship has armed weapons and locked them onto us."

**Bridge**

**Zor's Flagship**

Normally, Zor was a meticulous planner. After being a god, he was at foremost a scientist. Whatever his lack might be in the skills of battle, Zor was very good at planning things, researching, and building things. This had served him in good stead as he used salvage from Tollana to construct the massive additions to his then standard Ha'tak.

Zor's meticulousness also helped him to make any number of contingency plans should outside forces discover him here. Interlopers were to be destroyed before they could get word out. If word did get out or the interloper was too difficult to destroy, then Zor would simply abandon Tollana and go elsewhere much as it hurt his divine pride to run.

It would also have been nice to test his newly built Reflex Guns against a live target.

"Milord," his First Prime, Breetai, called. "The heathen ship identifies itself as a Tau'ri vessel," he continued in an incredulous tone. Considering how Zor had been keeping current events from his Jaffa, that was perhaps understandable. "They wish to know who we are and what we intend."

Normally, Zor was a meticulous planner. But these circumstances were far from normal. In fact, they were completely unplanned for. And when confronted by a nasty surprise, Zor could lose his temper and act as impulsively as any other Goa'uld.

"Put me through to the Tau'ri!" he snarled.

**Bridge**

**_U.S.S. Arcadia_**

"Definitely Goa'uld," O'Neill reported. He winced and pulled his headset away from his ear. "And definitely hostile."

"Okay, people, you all know that we're still technically at war with the Goa'uld," Joan said grimly. As a rule, Earth usually left alone any minor Goa'uld still in power as long as the Goa'uld in question wasn't bothering anyone. Earth had far too many other commitments with higher priority. "Options?"

"Rove," Ford said suddenly. "That Tel'tak is heading toward us."

"Huh, I was expecting this guy to send death gliders," Joan commented. She didn't like the thought of what she had to do. These people were fellow sentient beings even if they were the enemy. And they were likely to be Jaffa, probably still duped into believing in their false god.

"Orders?" Ford asked.

Joan sighed. There wasn't much else she could do here. "Blow them out of the sky."


	5. Chapter 5

**The Battle of Tollana, Part 5**

**By Nopporn Wongrassamee the Evil Author**

**_2 May 2015_**

**U.S.S. Arcadia**

_Ship's Log: The _Arcadia_ and her crew had our first combat engagement today. At 1533 Zulu time, we received a call from Earth. The SGC had been penetrated by unknown aliens who then used the Stargate to travel to Cimmeria. As we were the nearest available ship, our orders were to capture them and find out what they were up to._

_What was disturbing about these aliens was that most of them bore a distinct resemblance to the extinct Asgard, except that they were taller, had claws and sharp teeth, and acted more like animals than sentient beings. They were led by what was described as a "radioactive black oil slick" capable of possessing humans like the Goa'uld. Assuming you didn't have a Geiger counter, you might be able to tell if a human was possessed by one of these things by little black clouds that drift randomly across the host's eyes._

_Upon arrival at Cimmeria, we spotted the hostiles easily enough with sensors. Thankfully, they hadn't approached any of the local villages. However, something that oil slick alien was doing was preventing a transporter lock, so we couldn't just beam them into a holding cell. I sent my Marines down to capture them._

_While the Marines did well, the aliens were rescued, beamed away by a Jackson class Asgard ship of all things. From the brief communications exchanged with it, the Asgard ship is Loki. Let me make this clear: the proper term is not "commanded by". The ship IS Loki insofar that his uploaded mind is running the ship directly from inside its computers. Our records say that Loki is some sort of rogue scientist; from his ranting, Loki has become somewhat deranged since our last encounter with him._

_Unfortunately, I'm afraid Loki got away with the unknowns by the simple expedient of outrunning my own ship. We don't know what he's up to with these new aliens, but given how much the feral ones look like an Asgard, I think Loki might be trying to resurrect his people in his own image. This could be a problem in the future._

**7 July 2015**

**Tollan Tel'tak**

**Tollan Space**

"Evasive! Now!"

In an instant, Narim realized what happened and cursed himself for being an idiot. The Earthers saw a Goa'uld ship heading towards them and naturally assumed it was part of Zor's forces, carrying a boarding party or making an attack run on them. The Earthers had then responded accordingly.

Fokker threw the Tel'tak into the best evasive maneuvers he could. It wasn't enough. Narim saw the blue tracers from the Earth ship reach out unerringly towards them. The tracers reached their stolen cargo ship…

"Narim…" one of his people called out from the back of the Tel'tak.

…and passed harmlessly through them.

"…the phasing device has been repaired," the man in the back concluded.

Narim let out the breath he hadn't realized that he had been holding. "Contact the Earth ship and let them know who we are," he told Gloval.

**Bridge**

_**U.S.S. Arcadia**_

"Tel'tak has phased," Commander Ford announced. "Defensive fire had no effect. Turret Nine is adjusting settings to match..."

"Whoa!" Lieutenant O'Neill interrupted. "Ma'am, the Tel'tak just hailed us. Its crew is claiming they're Tollans fighting the Goa'uld."

"What?" Joan said in horror. "Cease fire on the Tel'tak," she ordered Ford. "O'Neill, are you sure?"

"That's what they say, Ma'am," O'Neill confirmed. "I can't actually verify their truthfulness."

"What do the sensors say?" Joan asked.

"The tactical sensors say it's a Tel'tak with about a dozen humanoid life forms on them," Ford told her. "They can't tell if they are or aren't Goa'uld on them. That special sensor array on Module A might be able to, but it's on the science net, not the secure net."

"Right then." Joan thought furiously. "O'Neill, give them instructions to land in the hangar bay. Ford, contact the science staff and have them scan the Tel'tak for any signs of Goa'uld or other signs of hostility. Grace…"

"Yeah, yeah," Grace interrupted. "Go meet the locals. Make sure no one's got a passenger. Is that all you think I'm good for?"

"I think that's the excuse used to get yourself on my ship," Joan reminded her sister in law.

"Oh sure, bring up the facts why don't you?" Grace complained. She sighed theatrically. "I might as well be on my way."

"Thanks, Grace," Joan told Grace.

"No problem," Grace replied as she went through the door.

Joan glanced over at the display showing the current scans of the dreadnaught. It was obvious to her that they couldn't fight that thing in a conventional ship to ship engagement and survive. That left only one other option.

"Get me the Marines."

**Tollan Tel'tak**

"The Earthers have stopped shooting at us," Gloval reported. "They are sending us landing instructions."

"Good," Narim said, relieved. He looked out and saw the starry background still shifting wildly. Narim frowned. "Fokker, you can stop evading now."

A brilliant blue bolt flashed past them.

"No I can't," Fokker grunted in reply.

"I thought you said the Earthers were no longer shooting at us!" Narim exclaimed, glaring at Gloval.

"They have stopped shooting at us," Gloval told him. "The Goa'uld however seemed to have remembered that we exist."

Another two bolts flashed by, uncomfortably close. The Tel'tak rocked from the near miss. Of course Zor would be using phased plasma bolts, Narim thought bitterly.

"Can we make it to the Earth ship?"

"Alive?" Fokker asked. "Maybe."

At times like this, Narim really wished that he knew some strong curse words.

**Briefing Room**

**Module B**

_**U.S.S. Arcadia**_

"We got our orders, Marines!" Lieutenant Gorman announced. He pointed at the holographic display of the dreadnaught. "That is our target. The _Arcadia_ cannot engage this ship in direct gun to gun combat and win. Since the Air Force and Navy sissies can't get the job done, the Colonel's tasked us with the mission to capture and/or disable this ship. And we WILL take that ship, right Marines?"

"HOORAH!" the assembled Marines chorused back enthusiastically.

"You've all had the training," Gorman continued. "You all know the objectives. With the way the Goa'uld centralize all their command and control systems, all we need to do is take the bridge and central computer and hold them. Once we have them, we can do what we damn well please no matter how big that ship is!"

"HOORAH!"

"So here's the plan," Gorman said. "We're going to exit the _Arcadia_ through the airlocks above Module A. Using the grav packs, we'll make our way along the top side of the dreadnought, thus bypassing ninety percent of the onboard defenders, and hit the bridge from the outside. They'll never see us coming, right Marines?"

"Hoorah?" a couple Marines said uncertainly. The rest just stared at their nominal superior officer as if he had just said something crazy.

"Uh, sir?" Gunny Apone spoke up after a moment. He was being careful to be _very_ respectful. "The Colonel came up with this plan?"

"Of course not," Gorman replied, not understanding why his gung ho Marines were no longer quite so gung ho. "Colonel Rove's an excellent officer. She knows how to delegate, especially for missions that require a Marine's battle hardened experience."

"Isn't this his first off-Earth assignment?" someone stage whispered.

"I assure you all that I am as well trained as can possibly be for this," Gorman said stiffly. "Now does anyone have any serious questions?" A hand was raised. "Corporal Vansen?"

"Sir, why not use the dropships if we're going outside?" Shane Vansen asked. After years of political wrangling, the Marine Corps had finally started admitting women into front line units. Vansen was one of them. "Wouldn't dropships be faster than the grav packs?"

"Good question, Corporal," Gorman said. "Unfortunately, the dreadnaught's hull is studded with what appear to be two rings of six Tollan Ion Cannons each. If they have the same targeting and tracking ability that was previously observed by SG-1 on their last visit to Tollana, then our dropships will simply be destroyed as soon as they enter line of sight. Does that answer your question, Corporal?"

"But, sir," Vansen persisted, "if we do get spotted, wouldn't that leave us open to attack from just about… well, everything?"

"Look, we're not going to get spotted," Gorman said, starting to get annoyed. "But since you're so concerned, you and your squad can stay behind. I need someone to pull security on the Arcadia, especially when that Tel'tak gets here."

"But, sir…"

"My decision is final, Vansen," Gorman stated. "We're not going to waste time debating this. Vansen, get your squad down to the hangar. Everyone else, let's get topside!"

**Bridge**

**Zor's Flagship**

It was a pity that Zor hadn't added the Ion Cannon's targeting computers to his smaller point defense guns. Or perhaps he should have added the transphase eradication technology to the Ion Cannons, but that would have resulted in the Ion Cannons being less effective. If he had done either, then he could have easily destroyed the stolen Tel'tak along with any rebels on board.

On the other hand, it was quite amusing to see them attempt to evade their inevitable destruction.

Still, there was the Tau'ri ship that needed dealing with. As he studied it, Zor realized what an incredible stroke of luck the Tau'ri had. The location they had embedded themselves in was such that not one of his flagship's guns could be brought to bear on it. Zor had never imagined that anyone could get anything bigger than a fighter that close to begin with.

On a positive note, the Tau'ri ship simply couldn't shoot its way out without courting its own destruction…

Hold. Maybe one of Zor's weapons could target the Tau'ri ship.

**Bridge**

_**U.S.S. Arcadia**_

The ship rocked slightly and the lights flickered.

"What was that?" Joan demanded.

"One of Goa'uld Ion Cannons just shot the top off the dorsal sensor array," Hitchcock reported.

"I thought they couldn't get line of sight us!" Joan said, alarmed.

"Sorry, ma'am," Hitchcock apologized. "I didn't think they would risk shooting that close to their won hull. But it looks like that was about all they could shoot. They lower that gun barrel any more and they'll be shooting through their own ship."

**Bridge**

**Zor's Flagship**

Zor growled in frustration. It looked like his all powerful flagship was going to need help.

"Breetai!"

"Yes, milord?" Breetai instantly replied, breaking off the steady stream of orders he had been giving to prepare for the inevitable Tau'ri boarding party.

"Launch the Death Gliders," Zor commanded. "And summon Dolza's Ha'tak!"


	6. Chapter 6

**Battle of Tollana, Part 6**

**By Nopporn Wongrassamee the Evil Author**

_**25 June 2015**_

**U.S.S. Arcadia**

_Ship's Log: Oh my God! We've encountered a race that is going to solve all our problems! They're so advanced that their technology looks like magic. They're benign and all wise and, and… well I don't have time to finish this report, but my next one will have all the details. They're so wonderful!_

_**26 June 2015**_

_Ship's Log: Oh God, I can't believe that we almost got taken by a bunch of interdimensional con artists. Luckily, our "Security Consultant" Grace Girardi is immune to whatever "mojo" (her words, not mine) they used to make us fall for them. Once they realized that Grace wasn't affected by their "mojo", the strange aliens started calling Grace "Slayer" for some strange reason. Once Grace destroyed the device that was making us react positively to them, we were able to chase the aliens back through the dimensional portal they came from._

_Note to Homeworld Security: A general warning should be issued warning everyone about these aliens. I think they called themselves the Mah Ree Soo._

**7 July 2015**

**Marine Boarding Party**

_**U.S.S. Arcadia**_

"Hmm, pretty," Lieutenant Gorman commented as he watched bolts of blue plasma shoot by overhead. He wasn't worried. Gorman and his people weren't the current targets of the Goa'uld turrets. They weren't even in line of sight of the turrets for that matter.

Currently, Gorman was waiting for the entire boarding party to exit the topside airlocks. It was a slow process. When he had planned out this operation, Gorman had forgotten that unlike the hangar doors, the personnel airlocks didn't have the permeable forcefields that let people come and go while simultaneously holding in the ship's air. That meant only a few Marines at a time could fit through the airlock at a time. Still, the delay while irritating, was unlikely to be crucial.

"Sir," Gunny Apone said over the Marine tactical net, "can I have a private word with you?"

"Alright, Gunny. Meet me on channel two," Gorman replied. He switched over and asked, "What do you need, Gunny?"

"Just wanted to have a quick chat with you about Vansen, sir," Apone told him. "You didn't have to come down so hard on her. Vansen's a good Marine. She had some valid points to make."

"Nonsense, Gunny," Gorman said smoothly. "I already had Vansen's squad picked out ahead of time for the rear guard detail."

"Hmm… I'm sure you did, sir," Apone said in a tone that implied he believed nothing of the sort.

"Hey, look! Everyone's outside now," Gorman said, suddenly changing the subject. He switched back the general tactical net. "Okay, Marines. Our first stop is there." He pointed to the cliff like face of the dreadnaught's rim looming above them. "We're going to use our grav packs to Free Fly to there. Once we go over the edge, set your grav packs to 'Ground Mode' and we'll double time the rest of the way to the bridge."

"Aw man, not Free Flight," someone complained. Other Marines grumbling could be heard over the net.

The Marine grav pack was the latest in Earth's EVA technology. Incorporated with the life support systems, the grav pack was essentially a miniaturized gravity drive powered by two D-cell naquada batteries. A grav pack didn't generate a lot of thrust, but in microgravity environments, a user didn't _need_ a lot of thrust. Even better, the grav pack had a Ground Mode setting which simulated gravity by generating a constant thrust in the direction of the nearest solid object that was significantly bigger than a human being.

The disadvantage was Free Flight mode. In Free Flight, the grav pack allowed the user to fly whichever way they wanted by controlling the thrust. Unfortunately, this required the use of both hands. A Marine in Free Flight would be unable to return fire if he came under attack. What was worse, the device used to control Free Flight was a modular attachment that looked suspiciously like a console video game controller. A suspicion reinforced by the fact that the device's manufacturer was Nintendo. The controller had been nicknamed the "Mario" by embarrassed soldiers who had to use it.

"Stow it, Marines!" Gorman snapped. He brought out his own Mar… er, grav pack controller. "Follow me!" he ordered as he hit the Up button.

**Bridge**

_**U.S.S. Arcadia**_

"The dreadnaught's launching Death Gliders," Ford reported.

"Point defense is to engage the Death Gliders as soon as they can," Joan ordered. "How many and what kind?" The second part was important. In recent years, various owners of the standard Goa'uld fighters had taken to modifying them to make them more competitive against each other and Earth's fighters. The Free Jaffa Nation for example had one design that carried four standard plasma guns that fired sequentially like some monster gatling gun.

"Gliders appear to be standard type, ma'am," Hitchcock informed her.

"And the count looks to be around five hundred plus," Ford added, "divided into groups of one hundred launched from five different bays."

"Five hundred?" Joan repeated weakly. One hundred was normally a Ha'tak's normal fighter complement, and they were rarely all put into space all at once.

"It's a big ship."

Joan considered. There wasn't much her ship could do except blast Death Gliders as they came into line of sight of the _Arcadia_. Studying the tactical display, her eye fell on the dancing blip that represented the Tollan Tel'tak. It was slowly making its way towards the _Arcadia_. Unfortunately, one of the Glider swarms was arcing towards Tollans and was likely to reach them before they could reach the _Arcadia_.

"Get me the Tollans," Joan said suddenly.

**Tollan Tel'tak**

"They want us to do what?" Narim said in disbelief.

"When they give the signal, we turn and run as fast as we can to the Earth ship," Gloval repeated. "Also, it is very important that we stay in phase."

"The Goa'uld ship will destroy us if we run in a predictably straight line," Narim objected.

"The Earthers say they, I quote, 'have that covered'," Gloval replied.

"I guess we don't have much choice," Narim said reluctantly as he eyed the oncoming horde of Death Gliders. "What's the signal?"

"We'll know when we see it, they said," Gloval told him in dissatisfaction.

At that moment, something shot away from the Earth ship, and then arched upward back towards the Goa'uld ship.

**Ion Cannon Turret**

**Zor's Flagship**

Exedor watched the oncoming Tel'tak with interest. He longed to destroy the rebels who had caused his fellow Jaffa so much grief for the past fourteen years, to fire his mighty Ion Cannon and blast them from the sky. Unfortunately, the stolen Tel'tak was still phased and the Ion Cannon's computers refused to shoot a target which it knew it couldn't hit. Still, it continued to track the rebel vessel just in case it decided to unphase while still in sight.

Exedor scowled at the thought. This gun station was no place for a true warrior. Unlike the guns with the more traditional manual targeting systems, the Ion Cannons were fully automated. Exedor had no idea why both Zor and Breetai insisted there be a Jaffa at each gun. Even on the few live fire exercises they've had, all a Jaffa did was be bored while the computers did all the work.

Suddenly, the Ion Cannon swung away from the Tel'tak to focus on a strange metal canister.

**Marine Boarding Party**

**Zor's Flagship**

"Okay, Marines," Lieutenant Gorman was saying. "On the count of three, we go over the edge and double time it." Because he was looking back at his Marines, he spotted something launch from the side of the _Arcadia_.

"One."

As it arced over their heads – upwards from the perspective of the two ships he supposed – Gorman estimated the strange object to be about the size and shape of an Ancient Puddle Jumper.

"Two."

But the only thing that the _Arcadia_ carried that was like that was… oh shit.

"Incoming!" Gorman shouted frantically. "Everyone down!"

**Zor's Flagship**

**Tollan Space**

Launched from the port missile pod, the Mark Nineteen was the latest in Earth made anti-capital ship missiles, and a radical departure in design philosophy from its predecessors. Previous missiles marks were simple naquada enhanced, contact nukes with a guidance system and a normal space drive of one kind or the other. As Earth accumulated ship to ship combat experience, it became painfully obvious that such weapons were extremely vulnerable to interception before they reached their targets.

Taking ideas from a proposed weapon system that predated the Stargate program, Earth's engineers had built a bomb pumped energy weapon into the Mark Nineteen's warhead. But this was no simple X-Ray laser. To defeat even the most sophisticated shields, the Nineteen's warhead was a high tech energy weapon based on the powerful main guns that all of Earth's star ships – including the Arcadia – currently mounted with one small difference. There was no provision to limit the gun's output to "safe" levels since no one expected to use the thing twice.

But Earth's engineers had gone one step further. To increase the Nineteen's versatility, the warhead had alternate settings. In this instance, Joan Rove had chosen to use it in an electronic warfare role.

When the single Mark Nineteen missile popped up above the Dreadnaught's "horizon", the computers running the Ion Cannons immediately detected it and engaged. But reaction speed was limited to the mechanical speed of the turret itself. The Cannons could only turn, lock, and fire so fast. Against most targets, the Ion Cannons would have been fast enough. Indeed, had the Mark Nineteen been programmed to target and destroy an individual Ion Cannon, the Ion Cannon probably would have shot first.

In this instance, the Mark Nineteen didn't have to line up on a specific location. Instead, it merely had to point itself in the general direction of the dreadnaught's surface. A tenth of a second before the first Ion Cannon could fire, the Earth made missile shotgunned a blast of electromagnetic, subatomic, and even more exotic particles across the entire upper surface of the Goa'uld dreadnaught that while doing little actual damage, blinded every sensor that happened to be looking at it.

So before Exedor could do more than widen his eyes in surprise, the targeting display he was watching dissolved into static filled garbage.

The Marines - not having actually gone on the Dreadnaught's upper surface yet - only caught the barest fringes of the blast. And while the Mark Nineteen only did superficial damage to the ship, five Marines closest to the edge were roasted alive inside their armor.

**Marine Boarding Party**

**Zor's Flagship**

The monster glare faded. Gorman cracked open an eye lid and saw red spots dance before his eyes. But he was alive and most of his Marines were still moving. They could still take the dreadnaught, he thought.

"Everyone up and over!" Gorman ordered.

"What?" "Are you nuts?" "Say that again, sir?"

"Enemy sensors are now blinded!" Gorman told them, as if that had been the plan all along. "Now's the best time! Follow me, Marines!" Without another word, Gorman turned, ran toward the edge, and leapt over it.

"You heard the, Lieutenant!" Gunny Apone barked. "Go!"

With alacrity, most of the Marines went. Those that didn't… well, it was obvious to Apone that they weren't going to move ever again.

"Dammit," Apone muttered to himself as he went over the side. He switched his comm to the Arcadia's tac net.

**Bridge**

_**U.S.S. Arcadia**_

"What in God's name are the Marines doing out there?" Joan demanded.

"It sounds like Lieutenant Gorman's plan is to assault the Goa'uld bridge from the outside, ma'am," O'Neill told her.

Joan squeezed her eyes shut in pain. Dammit, Gorman should have informed her that he was going to pull off such an unorthodox maneuver. Five Marines were down due to friendly fire. If only she had known…

But right now was not the time for self recriminations. She had a battle to run. Joan opened her eyes and looked at the plot. Five clouds of Death Gliders were converging on her position. For convenience, Joan had each cloud labeled after a phonetic letter. The cloud labeled Alpha was chasing the Tollans. And since the Tollans no longer had to worry about dodging fire from the dreadnought at the moment, they were as instructed heading in an almost straight line towards the _Arcadia_.

Perfect.

"All guns that can bear will fire on Alpha group at my command," Joan instructed. "Any that can't bear, will fire on any Glider they can."

As she finished speaking, Joan saw the last of Alpha's Death Gliders swing into a long, almost perfectly straight column that chasing the Tollans had dragged them into.

"FIRE!"

**Tollan Tel'tak**

Fokker weaved the Tel'tak back and forth, dodging fire from the Death Gliders behind them as they raced towards the Earth ship. The Death Gliders had also been equipped with transphase weaponry. Narim had never realized that Zor was so paranoid.

Perversely, Narim took it as a complement. Maybe the Tollan Resistance had been more effective than he thought. Unfortunately, that looked like it was about to get Narim and his people killed unless…

The Earth ship opened up, sending what looked like a solid wall of weapons fire at the Tollans. Narim flinched instinctively at the sight, but the Tel'tak was never touched. With the Tel'tak being phased, the fire passed harmlessly through it and the Tollans.

By following the Tollans, the Death Gliders had set themselves heading straight towards the _Arcadia_. What was more, the chase had strung out the Gliders into a long, narrow column pointed straight at the Earth ship. In other words, they had unintentionally made themselves perfect targets for the _Arcadia's_ point defense guns.

Narim watched in open mouth wonder as every Glider chasing him was destroyed in less than ten seconds.

And then they arrived.

**Ion Cannon Turret**

**Zor's Flagship**

There! Done!

Exedor nodded in satisfaction as his targeting screen came on. Boring duty or not, the Ion Cannon was his station. Any good warrior was supposed to know his weapon in and out, and Exedor had studied his Ion Cannon enough to be able to do some very basic repairs. The computer was still having gibbering fits from whatever the Tau'ri had done to it, but he had manual control.

Maybe Zor and Breetai had a point after all, Exedor admitted to himself grudgingly.

Exedor panned the view back and forth. Until the computer came back online, it was up to Exedor to shoot any enemies. Not that he could actually see any enemies. Still, it had been far too long since he had direct control of a big gun like this. Even without firing, this was almost fun!

Then he spotted movement.

**Marine Boarding Party**

**Zor's Flagship**

Private First Class William Hudson was hot on the Ell Tee's heels as they ran across the open top of the Goa'uld dreadnaught. Like most starships, the dreadnaught's hull had what Hudson liked to think of as terrain features, surface irregularities where mysterious bits of equipment or decoration stuck out from the surface of the hull. Unlike most other starships though, none of the terrain features here were more than knee high.

In retrospect, that was probably why Hudson saw Lieutenant Gorman suddenly get hit by a shot from one of the Ion Cannons.

Instantly, every Marine went prone, hiding in the shadows created by the Terrain features. Well, every Marine except Lieutenant Gorman. Hudson saw his former commanding officer's bottom half go tumbling off into the void. The top half was simply gone.

And then other guns started firing at them.

**Hangar Bay**

_**U.S.S. Arcadia**_

It was a relief when Fokker landed the Tel'tak in the Earth ship's hangar bay. After ten years, Narim was finally in a place that could be marginally called "safe". So it was something of a shock to step off the Tel'tak to find a row of obvious weapons pointed at him.

**Bridge**

_**U.S.S. Arcadia**_

Cheers broke out on the bridge as the last of Alpha's Death Gliders was destroyed.

"Okay, people," Joan said after the cheering died down. "We still have to deal with…"

"Rove!" Ford interrupted. "We're detecting a Ha'tak coming from the planet!"

Before Joan could formulate a response, the _Arcadia_ rocked violently as the other four hundred plus Death Gliders that hadn't been destroyed started hammering the ship en mass.


	7. Chapter 7

**The Battle of Tollana, Part 7**

**By Nopporn Wongrassamee the Evil Author**

_**3 June 2015**_

**U.S.S. Arcadia**

_Ship's Log: P21-6X6 is listed in the "O'Neill Cartouche" as one of those Stargate addresses that no can dial. When we arrived, we determined immediately that there was no Stargate here. For that matter, there was no planet… or star system for that matter. If there was a station here, it's long since disappeared._

_What is here is a naturally occurring wormhole. There's a great deal of interference coming from it, making scanning difficult. The science staff, especially my brother, wants to get closer to examine the thing in detail. I think I've seen enough old Star Trek episodes on this trip to know how bad an idea it is to bring my ship any closer than I must to weird space anomalies._

_To that end, my CAG, Captain Rogers, has volunteered to take a F-314 equipped with a science package for a close up look._

_**5 June 2015**_

_Ship's Log: I must regretfully report the loss of Captain William "Buck" Rogers. And the damn thing is that I can't even be sure he's dead._

_As it turns out, the P21-6X6 wormhole is NOT a natural phenomenon. According to my brother, it's some kind of time machine, probably built by the Ancients. Analysis of Roger's telemetry indicated some kind of battle was being fought at the other end, and that all the interference we've been getting was actually ECM. A stray shot from that battle clipped Roger's fighter, disabling it. I could only watch helplessly as he vanished into the wormhole's event horizon._

_I would have gone in after him, but Roger's passage destabilized the wormhole. Assuming he survived the collapse, he's probably at the other end. God only knows what era he ended up in. Whether it's the past or the future, Rogers is going to need to find an alternate means to get back to the here and now. According to my brother, the wormhole won't become passable again until sometime in the middle of the 25__th__ century…_

**7 July 2015**

**Bridge**

**Dolza's Ha'tak**

"Dolza."

"Command me, milord!"

"The Tau'ri have a weapon that can temporarily blind your Ha'tak's sensors," Zor began.

"No Tau'ri tricks shall prevent me from destroying them, milord!" Dolza said proudly.

"Yes, yes, I'm sure they won't," Zor said impatiently. "Now shut up and let me finish giving you instructions."

"Yes, milord."

"Good. To prevent your sensors from being blinded, adjust your shields like this. First…"

**Hangar Deck, Module B**

_**U.S.S. Arcadia**_

**Tollan Space**

Seeing the line of Earth weapons pointed at him, Narim felt betrayed. He had thought the Earth ship would be a place of refuge, a safe location where he and his people wouldn't have to worry about enemies around every corner. And the betrayal was made all the more bitter because no one had actually said that sanctuary was being given. No, Narim had merely _assumed_ it was based on memories ten years gone.

Narim's dark thoughts broke off when he was approached by one of the Earthers. Unlike the other Earth people Narim had seen past and present, this woman appeared to be unarmed and was just… untidy. Her hair was unkempt, her clothes hung loosely, and she moved with an air of careless abandon. Given his circumstances, Narim thought it ridiculous that he should be concerned about the way a woman, a complete stranger in fact, presented herself.

But when the woman looked him in the eye, Narim's suddenly got a different impression. Every instinct he had, finely honed over ten years of hit and run attacks against the Goa'uld forces occupying his home, just screamed that this woman was dangerous.

Narim tensed to defend himself, but the woman closed her eyes and turned her head as if listening for something only she could hear. Even with eyes closed, Narim got the impression that she was evaluating and measuring his people. Then she opened her eyes and spoke to the ones pointing weapons at him.

"They're cool, guys," she told the Earth soldiers. "No snakes in this party."

Narim relaxed slightly as they lowered their weapons. It suddenly occurred to him that the Earthers had reason to be paranoid too...

And then the deck leapt up at him.

**Impact Site**

**Zor's Flagship**

**Tollan Space**

Four hundred and sixteen Death Gliders arrived from above and below in four separate flights. As it happened, while Zor's Jaffa had a vague unit structure, it didn't extend to organizing Glider attacks of this magnitude. The last time any System Lord had deployed anywhere near this many small craft at a single target had been Anubis during his last attempted invasion of Earth, and that had been only a little over a hundred Gliders escorting a few Al'kesh bombers to capture the Antarctic facility. As a general, most Goa'uld preferred to use Ha'tak for anything requiring the firepower of more than a few Death Gliders.

In this case, Zor didn't have much choice. Dolza's Ha'tak was on its way, but not here yet. His own flagship couldn't bring its weapons to bear. That left his Gliders. Hundreds of Death Gliders was an unwieldy number and no one even tried to organize them. That they had clumped into separate groups was more an artifact of Jaffa pilots playing follow the leader from their separate hangar bays. That they all attacked at the same time was due to Breetai's battle skill.

Breetai, Zor's First Prime, was well aware of the advantages of massed fire. So he had instructed his pilots to await his word before attacking. It was by pure luck that all the Gliders were launched by the time Alpha flight chased the stolen Tel'tak straight into the Tau'ri guns. When the Tau'ri started firing, Breetai knew it was the moment to attack. He was shocked at how fast Alpha had been destroyed, but their sacrifice had distracted the Tau'ri fire from their brothers.

The Death Gliders hammered the _Arcadia_, and they took their licks doing it. The Arcadia's gun turrets returned fire as best they could, but these Gliders weren't coming in as perfectly lined up targets. The return fire was spread out now instead of concentrated, killing singletons instead of tens at a time. Some died making their attack run. Some died after their attack runs as they peeled off. Still others were accidentally killed as they drifted into each other's line of fire during attack runs. Two actually collided as they crossed the Tau'ri ship in opposite directions.

But the _Arcadia_ didn't get away undamaged. They were a immobilized, with no shields, and with four point defense turrets buried inside Zor's flagship. Almost every shot fired at the _Arcadia_ scored a hit. Several Gliders "killed" by Tau'ri guns or friendly fire rammed the ship due to pure inertia. The SI fields did their best, but they could only reduced damage taken, not eliminate damage entirely.

**Bridge**

_**U.S.S. Arcadia**_

Finally, the seemingly endless barrage ended. Devereaux looked at her plot. The Death Gliders streamed away from the _Arcadia_ and were forming up at a distance where the turrets couldn't reliably hit them.

"Status report!" Colonel Rove demanded.

"Gliders are forming up for another strafing run," Commander Ford reported. "Glider count is now at three three two." One of the dots representing the Death Gliders disappeared, victim of a lucky shot. "Make that three three one."

"Damage is mostly superficial. No critical systems have been damaged," Lieutenant Commander Hitchcock added. "However, there are numerous small hull breaches. Sections breached have been sealed off. Turrets Six, Eight, and Twelve are damaged but functional. Seven, Nine, and Thirteen can fire but are no longer able to track; they're welded to the hull. Ten and Fourteen have damaged sensors and have to rely on the main arrays for targeting data."

"Rove, we need to distract those Gliders," Ford said. "If they all hit us again, we're going to be looking at critical system damage. I recommend we launch the fighters and dropships."

"Negative!" Rove replied. "Not while those Ion Cannons are still up and running. They'll blow are people out of the sky before they can do any good."

Dammit! Devereaux felt so useless. She was a pilot, but the ship she piloted wasn't flying anywhere yet. More than that, there were enough pilots on board to man all the fighters and dropships they had. All she could do was just sit and watch here.

"Marines report that they are pinned down by Ion Cannon fire," Lieutenant O'Neill relayed. "They're requesting any available fire support we could give them."

"Forty two Gliders have broken off from the main group," Ford added. "It looks like they're going after the Marines."

Under normal circumstances, it would have been the _Arcadia_ providing fire support for the Marines. But the only guided missile weapons the _Arcadia_ carried were Mark Nineteens which were far too powerful for Marine fire support, and all the direct fire weapons lacked line of sight even if they hadn't been preoccupied with the Death Gliders. In case the _Arcadia_ was unavailable, fire support would have been provided by the dropships which did carry guided missiles, but…

Wait a minute.

"Ma'am," Devereaux spoke up, catching the Colonel's attention. "I have an idea."

**Marine Boarding Party**

**Zor's Flagship**

Low crawling across the top of the Goa'uld dreadnaught, Private Vasquez felt incredibly exposed. Of course, she and her people _were_ exposed. The dreadnaught's entire upper hull was made up of kilometer wide triangular facets that were completely flat with a bulbous Ion Cannon mounted at each corner. When the Cannons had opened up, the Marines had been caught smack in the center of one of the facets. The Ion Cannons could fire extremely close to the hull, but not low enough to hit prone infantry. But the Ion Cannons had proved they could hit standing infantry. All movement had slowed to a literal crawl. Since they were half way to their objective anyway, Gunny had elected to continue the assault.

While Vasquez was no scholar, she was up on her general Marine history. She couldn't believe that they were carrying out a classic World War II style beach assault. In space no less.

A pair of bright flashes flanked Vasquez. Vasquez looked behind her. A damned Death Glider was making strafing run at her. Death Glider strafing runs were notoriously inaccurate because their two plasma guns were usually set too widely apart to hit what they were aimed at. And their accuracy was even worse here because the plasma blasts had smaller footprints here because there was no air to carry any shockwaves.

Flipping onto her back, Vasquez was going to show these Jaffa why most Jaffa in the galaxy had long since learned to NOT make strafing runs at Tau'ri soldiers. She chambered an M309 self propelled grenade, raised her M4A6, and fired. The Death Glider's cockpit promptly exploded.

"Yeah!" Vasquez shouted. "Take that, you mother…"

Then she noticed that Newton's laws of motion were making a nuisance of themselves. Without any planetary gravity to pull it aside, the now unpiloted Glider continued to head straight for her. There was no time left to dodge.

"Oh, sonuvabitch…"

Luck was with her. One of the Glider's wingtips struck the "ground" first, causing it to bounce and flip over Vasquez prone form. Vasquez caught an up close glimpse of the mess she had made of the cockpit before the Glider spun off into the void.

"Yeah!" Vasquez shouted in exhilaration, raising her weapon skyward. "Man, I am untouchable!"

As if to contest the point, an ion bolt flashed past, shearing her weapon's business end off just forward of the trigger guard. At the same time, another Death Glider started a strafing run on her.

**Hangar Deck, Module B**

_**U.S.S. Arcadia**_

Fokker watched as the Earth people scrambled around. They seemed to be getting two large boxy spacecraft ready for something. They were obviously some kind of transports, and they were obviously being armed. The two boxy craft were placed facing the doors at both ends of the hangar, each on opposite sides of the Earth ship. The Tel'tak had been moved off to one side to make room.

A pair of smaller fighters flanked one of the large transports, their pilots obviously impatient.

"What do you mean we can't use the transport rings in here?" Gloval demanded, drawing Fokker's attention. Narim had gone off to consult with the ship's commander, leaving Gloval in charge.

"Look," said the Earth man, a civilian apparently. "The structural integrity fields are the only thing holding this ship together. We can't drop them and with them up, nothing can get through them without actually punching a hole in a wall first. Not you guys ghosting." Fokker winced at the memory of trying to use his phasing device to walk through one of the ship's walls and almost breaking his nose trying. "Not any kind of communication signal. And certainly not transporters of any kind."

"Y'know, it's not a bad plan, Doctor Girardi," mused Vansen, the leader of the Earth soldiers. "We just have to get the Tel'tak outside the _Arcadia_." She looked around at all the activity. "I think we're going to have to take a number though."

Everyone looked around. The _Arcadia's_ small craft were obviously just about ready to launch. And those hangar bay doors were obviously wide enough to fit maybe just one more ship…

"I've got an idea," everyone in their little circle said suddenly.

**Bridge**

_**U.S.S. Arcadia**_

The anonymous deckhand escorted Narim into the _Arcadia's_ control center. He was feeling a bit disoriented by the impromptu tour to get here. From what he had seen, the ship was a random mix of the advanced and the primitive. A few careful questions put to his escort revealed that this ship was entirely Earth built. How had Earth come so far in just fourteen short years?

The bridge was more of the same. Again, there was that mix of advanced and primitive. In addition, the bridge was a hive of activity as reports flew back and forth.

"Hangar reports fighters and dropships are ready for launch."

"Understood. Standby for launch on my command. Enemy status?"

"Gliders are maintaining distance. Ha'tak is holding position on the opposite side of the dreadnaught."

"Tell me immediately when it looks like the Gliders are starting the next attack run."

"Colonel Rove?" Narim's guide called. The woman who seemed to be in charge turned to them. She looked startled at the appearance of Narim's guide and gave him a look that Narim couldn't quite interpret. "This is Narim," the guide continued, unperturbed, "the leader of the Tollan resistance."

"Narim?" Rove said, surprised. She turned to Narim. "SG-1's Narim?"

"Er, yes," Narim said. He was slightly annoyed that he was being described as belonging to SG-1. He was even more annoyed that he was being so petty. "I'm surprised to see that Earth has a working starship."

"Wow," Rove said, impressed. Then what he said seemed to register. "I'm sorry, Narim. But everyone back home assumed that you were all…"

"Ha'tak moving to attack position!" a dark skinned man interrupted. "Gliders incoming!"

Colonel Rove's head whipped around. "Flush port missile pod at the Ha'tak," she ordered, "and launch dropships and fighters!"

**Marine Boarding Party**

**Zor's Flagship**

1.2 billion dollars to build the starship that brought Corporal Dwayne Hicks here.

2 million dollars spent to equip Hicks with the latest in Marine battle gear.

Five hundred thousand dollars gone to train Hicks to be the best Marine he could be.

Fifty six bucks per armor- and shield-piercing bullet fired from his M4A6 carbine. Yes, inflation is a bitch.

The look on the Jaffa gunner's face when Hicks shot him over the barrels of his own plasma gun turret? Priceless.

By pure accident, Hicks had come across the Goa'uld turret. From his perspective, the turret was set in a pit in the dreadnaught's hull. Its placement meant that it couldn't fire on the Marines. By the same token, it also couldn't block the fire from the damned Ion Cannons.

It was a pity he couldn't actually enter the ship here. A forcefield covered the gunner's position. While Hicks' bullets could penetrate the forcefield, his suit and therefore Hicks himself couldn't. It was a pity that he couldn't spot the forcefield emitters. Still, it was a relief to be able to stand up without being shot.

Hicks poked his head slightly out of the "pit". It nearly got shot off.

Ducking back down, he switched his comm to unit wide broadcast. "Heads up, everyone! We've got enemy infantry in full Kull armor out here with us!"


	8. Chapter 8

The Battle of Tollana, Part 8

Author's Note: I did a little research on a Stargate wiki and discovered that the last Tollan episode was in 2001, not 2005. Oops! That's gonna get fixed real quick if it hasn't been already…

_**12 June 2015**_

_Ship's Log: We've been pulled off our survey mission to help SG-1 track down some crook from Earth who has managed to redefine the meaning of "Grand Theft". It seems in recent years that there's a growing demand among in the galaxy for Tau'ri artifacts. I guess it's a downside to us being such a major player in five galaxies._

_I'm going over the details of the fugitive and I'm amazed at what this Carmen Sandiego managed to do with a basic transporter and obscene amounts of buffer space_…

**7 July 2015**

**Tollan Space**

On both sides of the _U.S.S. Arcadia_, her great hangar doors flipped down. Had the _Arcadia_ been on a planet's surface, those doors could have doubled as boarding ramps. As it was, they could be opened far faster than sliding doors could have been.

As soon as there was sufficient, five small craft popped out. On the starboard side, there was one Marine dropship and a Goa'uld made Tel'tak. On the port side was the other Marine dropship flanked by two F-314 multirole aerospace fighters.

The dropships came to an immediate halt as soon as they cleared the bay doors, and then pivoted nose upwards. Then they ripple fired their entire load of AGM-65-S Maverick missiles. Like most of Earth's planet-side weaponry, this latest version of the venerable missile system had been upgraded to be able to operate in vacuum. The dropships had eight mounted on each wing, resulting in a total salvo of thirty two missiles.

While the dropships were doing that, the two fighters were racing outwards at diverging angles, moving to flank the cloud of Death Gliders to either side. As they did so, they too ripple fired missiles. These missiles were AIM-307 Sparrow Hawks, the second best anti-fighter missile Earth could make. The best missiles had only started full scale production after _Arcadia_ had started her survey and other ships had priority. Still, the Sparrow Hawks were good enough to kill anything they locked onto. The fighters had carried eight of missiles each.

Elsewhere, the Tel'tak locked onto a distant beacon buried deep within the Goa'uld dreadnaught. After rotating its belly to face the beacon, the Tel'tak engaged its ring transporters.

And lastly, the last eleven Mark Nineteen missiles in the port missile pod launched straight at the Death Gliders.

**Bridge**

**Zor's Flagship**

As Dolza's Ha'tak moved to where it could fire on the Tau'ri ship, Zor considered transferring himself over to it. True, his other ship was smaller and weaker than this one. But Dolza also didn't have a Tau'ri ship buried in his side or Tau'ri soldiers trying to board him. On the down side, such a display of cowardice could weaken his hold on the Jaffa. Not only that, but Zor was loathe to sacrifice the powerful warship he had spent so much time building.

The Tau'ri ship launched more missiles, eleven of them this time. As they popped into line of sight, Zor's Ion Cannons turned from harassing the Tau'ri on his hull to shooting Tau'ri missiles. The geometry was such that seven Ion Cannons shot down five missiles on the first volley. Two of Zor's Death Gliders accidentally got in the way of the other two cannons. Yet other Death Gliders accounted for two more missiles. The remaining four missiles detonated before the Ion Cannons could fire again or anyone else could destroy them.

Had the Mark Nineteen missiles been set in ECM mode again, the adjustments made to Dolza's shields could easily have handled them. As it was, the Tau'ri made missiles were set to attack mode. Instead of a shotgun spray of exotic particles, four immensely powerful beams intersected at Dolza's Ha'tak. Dol'za's shields flared for an instant before collapsing under the barrage.

Zor stared in shock as his potential escape route was carved up like a meat roast. He took cold comfort in the fact that there were no secondary explosions even though that fact made the Ha'tak no less dead. The "fuses" – a concept he had stolen from the Tau'ri - had worked.

And then his Ion Cannons started exploding.

**Marine Boarding Party**

**Zor's Flagship**

Using a small ridge – it looked like a half buried pipe – for cover, Gunny Apone used his M4A6 to snipe at an infantryman in Kull armor. Return fire came from a TER, not the standard Kull weapon nicknamed the "plasma UZI".

The original Kull warriors had long since all died, mostly due to vengeful Jaffa. Any that survived had long since expired because Anubis had intentionally designed them with limited life spans. The Kull armor was another story. Though unpowered, Kull armor was widely considered the best infantry armor anywhere; the stuff was the next best thing to SI Field reinforced walls for imperviousness and they didn't _have_ SI fields. As such, Kull armor was highly valued and had shown up in some of the strangest places over the past few years.

They were also vacuum sealed. Hence Apone was shooting at a user on the hull of a starship.

On the other hand, while Kull armor could bounce bullets, inertia still got transferred. Instead of being knocked over, the guy that Apone had shot just sat down awkwardly, arms flailing. It would have been funny had the guy not managed to keep hold of his weapon and shoot back. Luckily, his aim sucked even more in the sitting position.

Apone had noticed these guys were moving slowly. They were clumsier and more cautious than his Marines. Others had made the same observation. They obviously weren't using some equivalent of a Marine grav pack. They were using what Marines derisively called as "sticky shoes", footwear whose soles had been modified somehow to "stick" to solid surfaces. The obvious disadvantage was that if both feet lost contact with the "ground", the wearer would float away helplessly.

That made ballistic weapons like Apone's M4A6 perfect for this engagement. If the bullets couldn't penetrate, they could at least knock the poor slobs off the ship. The only problem was that _this_ poor slob wasn't cooperating!

As the man in Kull armor stood up again, Apone took aim, waiting for him to be fully erect before trying to knock him over again. He need not have bothered.

A Maverick missile sailed right over Apone's head and brushed the man in Kull armor. This did what Apone's weapon didn't. The man in armor went hurling off into the night, arms flailing helplessly.

As for the missile, it didn't even notice. It kept right on going, making a beeline for the nearest Ion Cannon.

**Ion Cannon**

**Zor's Flagship**

Exedor saw the missiles coming and there was nothing he could do about it. The targeting computer was up and running again. It was a far faster and more accurate than he could ever be. Exedor just questioned its priorities.

The smaller Mavericks had popped over the ship's "horizon" only moments after the larger Mark Nineteens. Exedor's Ion Cannon was already engaging one of the larger missiles when the Mavericks appeared. The targeting computer decided to finish engaging its current target before getting down to the business of defending itself.

Exedor watched in horror as the two Ion Cannons closest to the Tau'ri ship simply exploded right after they shot down one each of the Tau'ri's large missiles. But that was all they could do before they each took two Mavericks. And the rest seemed to all be aimed at him.

Or maybe not. The missiles spread out, going after other Ion Cannons. But there were still four coming at him. His Ion Cannon fired once. A missile died. A second firing killed a second missile. Amazingly enough, the Ion Cannon managed to fire a third time, destroying a third missile practically at its muzzle.

The fourth missile hit.

**Bridge**

_**U.S.S. Tollana**_

Narim looked like he was in shock. At first, Joan was puzzled by his reaction, and then she realized what must be going on in his head. The last time he had seen met Earth people, the Tollans had been far more technologically advanced. At the time, Earth had been trying to get the Tollans' Ion Cannon technology, the same technology that made up the guns Joan had just destroyed with ridiculous ease.

And then there was the Ha'tak. With the upgraded shields Anubis had installed in all his Ha'tak, Tollan Ion Cannons almost certainly couldn't destroy one with a mere four shots!

Joan turned away. Narim looked like he might be a bit, and Joan had a battle to run.

"Damage assessment?" she asked.

"One Ha'tak totaled," Ford replied. "It's not completely destroyed, but it's also not going to be doing any fighting."

Joan nodded in acknowledgement. "The Ion Cannons?"

"Half the dorsal cannons are either disabled or destroyed," Ford continued. "The dropships are back in the hangar loading up on more missiles. It looks like the Marines have a clear path except for some enemy infantry out there with them."

"Good," Joan said. She turned to O'Neill. "Tell the Marines that the Ion Cannons are down."

With that, she turned to the tactical display. Her two fighters were still alive and giving the Death Gliders merry hell. They were certainly distracting the Gliders from the _Arcadia_, but the odds were still over a hundred to one. Joan prayed that she hadn't sent them to their deaths.

**Fighter Furball**

Accelerate. Fire on the fighters chasing Maniac. Spin when past them. Shoot his own trailers. Spin again. Accelerate. Never EVER maintain a predictable trajectory.

So far, a number of factors had contributed to the two fighters' survival. First, the individual Death Gliders had crappy rates of fire. Second was that their aim was pretty poor and made even worse by wild maneuvering. Only by sheer volume of fire could they score hits. And what hits they could score were mostly nullified by shields.

Lieutenant Blair was flying an F-314 Viper, arguably the most maneuverable space fighter in existence. The F-314 was a knockoff of the _Galactica's_ Vipers. While the original Vipers were primitive compared to anything flown by the Jaffa or the Wraith, their extreme maneuverability had impressed Earth's engineers. Those engineers had taken the Viper's basic design and applied everything they had learned from the original F-302s to them. The result surpassed the latest F-302 models on just about everything except missile carrying capacity.

As a bonus, the F-314 could use the _Galactica's_ launch tubes. This was a definite plus since Earth had retained and upgraded the old girl for planetary defense. The Colonial refugees were calling the new fighter a "Mark VIII".

But when the _Galactica_ refugee fleet had arrived at Earth, it had brought something far more valuable than military hardware. After years of running and fighting, the _Galactica_ had arrived at Earth with what were undoubtedly the best, most skilled fighter pilots in the known universe. Those pilots had passed on their skills to Earth's fledgling corps of space fighter jocks.

All of the _Arcadia's_ pilots had been trained by the Colonials. Their training had included fighting when vastly outnumbered. If he had time to think, Blair might have considered his chances of survival about even at best. He just had to kill Death Gliders faster than they could drain his shields.

Fire. Scratch one Glider. Scratch two. Spin. Only eight or nine dozen more to go…

**Joint Force Boarding Party**

**Zor's Flagship**

"Clear!" Private Cooper Hawkes declared.

"This is creepy," West whispered as he looked down yet another empty corridor. "Where the hell is everyone?"

"Probably waiting for us to fall into their trap," Corporal Vansen muttered. "Now keep your eyes peeled. I don't want to be surprised."

The combined party of Earth Marines and Tollan guerillas had used the Tel'tak's ring transporters to get aboard the dreadnaught. They knew they were roughly somewhere in the middle of the ship. Aside from that, they didn't have a clue where anything was. Except for the two guards they had surprised at the ring room, they hadn't seen a single soul. The guards were in no condition to ask questions. Nor would they ever be.

Cooper was a Jaffa, technically speaking. His parents were Jaffa. They had served false gods once upon a time. Now they lived among the Free Jaffa Nation. Cooper had grown up there, but he had never been implanted with a Goa'uld larvae, never needed Tretonin. And when Cooper had reached a man's age, he joined the Marines. He had even taken a Tau'ri name.

His parents had not approved. Cooper was a warrior raised by a warrior people. But what his parents could not see, what Jaffa pride would not let his people admit, was that the Tau'ri were the best and most skilled warriors in the galaxy. And Cooper could not abide being a second best warrior.

Still, even in boot camp, he never imagined that he'd be taking point in a party like this. To wit:

"I cannot believe you came along," Luke Girardi was grumbling as they continued to wander.

"I can take care of myself," his wife replied. "And I ain't telling Joan that I let you get killed in some firefight because you wanted to prove what a manly man you are."

"I'm surrounded by big bad Marines and Tollans who have lots of fighting experience," Luke argued. "I'll be fine."

"Honey, the only one I trust with you safety is me," Grace replied. She looked around. "No offense, guys."

"None taken," Vansen said dryly.

Although Grace Girardi was unarmed but for a mysterious, flashlight-like cylinder on her hip, none of the Marines had any doubts about her abilities as a warrior. She was the best hand to hand fighter Cooper had ever seen. Not only that, Grace could learn to use a new weapon with frightening speed. Coupled with her ability to sense nonhumans, and Cooper had little doubt why she had been attached to the _Arcadia_ as a "security consultant".

Her husband was along because they needed someone who was familiar with Goa'uld technology once they found a sensitive location. The extent of his combat training was that he knew to go flat as soon as a firefight broke out.

"Which way?" Vansen asked one of the Tollans.

"Down," Gloval replied after consulting some hand held gizmo. "We're more or less directly above the central power core."

"Okay, thanks," Vansen said. She looked around at the party. "So, has anyone seen any stairs or elevators?"

Everyone made negative noises.

"Fantastic," Vansen grunted. "Okay, Coop. Lead the way."

**Ion Cannon**

**Zor's Flagship**

Exedor was still alive. He had many minor cuts and was bleeding, but his symbiont could handle that. He would live at least a while longer. His station was a wreck however. His Cannon was no longer operational.

That last missile must have been deflected slightly by the destruction of its mate, Exedor thought. That was not enough to prevent it from striking, but the damage inflicted was less than total. Emergency forcefields had kept his chamber from decompressing and killing him. But maybe there was something he could salvage here.

A quick examination showed that the targeting computer was a total loss. However, the Cannon itself looked to be intact. As he thought about it, Exedor became more and more certain that he could rig a bypass and fire the Cannon manually. Maybe.

He got down to work.

**Joint Force Boarding Party**

**Zor's Flagship**

"Hold up, guys."

At Grace Girardi's words, everyone stopped moving.

"What's up?" Vansen asked.

"I'm sensing Jaffa," Grace replied. She closed her eyes and turned her head this way and that. Then she pointed in a seemingly random direction. "They're on the other side of this wall." She frowned. "There's something odd about these Jaffa. I'm not sure what."

"Must be something important," Vansen guessed. She gestured with her weapon at a nearby door. "That looks like the entrance. Let's go."

Everyone flanked the door, making sure not to silhouette themselves in it once it was opened. West was at the controls. Cooper had point. He would be the first one in.

"Okay, on three," Vansen said. "One. Two. THREE!"

West stabbed a button. The door slid open. Cooper spun and jumped like lightning through the open door, weapon at the ready. He found himself staring down the business end of a staff weapon. For the first time in his life, Cooper hesitated to pull the trigger.

The staff weapon was held by a child who couldn't be older than ten.

"What the fuck?" someone behind him exclaimed.


	9. Chapter 9

**The Battle of Tollana, Part 9**

_**21 April 2015**_

_Ship's Log: I think we've just run into a race who just took the title for "Most Technologically Advanced Species" away from the Ancients. We were en route to P3S-T8MN when we were literally pulled out of hyperspace about twenty lightyears short of our destination. As far as anyone on this ship knows, that should have been impossible. Then they went through all our supposedly "unhackable" computers – including the isolated standalones – and presumably downloaded everything._

_In the face of such power, there wasn't much that I could do except recite the general first contact spiel about how we're peaceful and we'd like to have open trade and relations with them._

_They called me a liar._

_It seems that back in the 1970s or -80s, one of their ships passed through the Sol system and intercepted one of the Voyager probes. Taking the message on the probe at its word, these aliens sent a representative to Earth. And on arriving, he was promptly shot down over the United States followed by a long, cross country chase by government forces._

_Needless to say, this was pretty embarrassing for us. Why is none of this in our records?_

_Note to Homeworld Security: It seems the aliens' representative is still on Earth. He seems to have gone native which may present us with a way to make up for a bad first impression. It might be worth it to look up this "Scott Hayden" or "Paul Forrester"._

**7 July 2015**

**Joint Force Boarding Party**

**Zor's Flagship**

**Tollan Space**

"What the fuck?"

Cooper stared down at the kid over the sights of his own weapon. The kid stared back, only his weapon lacked sights. The standoff seemed to last forever. Cooper had several reasons for not pulling his trigger though.

First, Tau'ri training tended to emphasize hitting enemy combatants and sparing non-combatants whenever possible. The Tau'ri also generally classified children as non-combatants.

Second, the staff weapon this kid was holding was obviously a toy. Cooper once had one like it when he had been that age.

And third, a woman – presumably the child's mother – swooped in to scoop up the kid in her arms. She was half scolding the kid and half pleading for mercy with the intruders. A quick glance around showed a room filled with women and children.

The Tau'ri didn't quite know what to make of the situation. The Tollans however, did.

"Miriya?"

"Fokker?"

"You… I can't believe you turned collaborator."

"What choice did I have? This," Miriya waved vaguely around them, "is infinitely better than Zor's 'farms'." The women in the room shuddered. The children just looked around at the adults, worried but not understanding the reasons for their worry.

"You could have fought! Resisted!" Fokker argued, angrily.

"That's easy for you to say!" Miriya snapped back. "You don't know what it's like down there. You weren't some plaything that was just kept around for the pleasure of any random Jaffa who walked in! You have the phase devices and can some and go as you please! You haven't suffered…"

Fokker seemed to snap. Time seemed to slow down. With a wordless growl, he leveled his weapon at Miriya's face. Miriya's eyes widened in surprise, perhaps even fear. And then someone grabbed Fokker's arm. His weapon discharged harmlessly into the ceiling.

"Yo!" Grace Girardi said. "No shooting the unarmed civilians." Her grip on Fokker's forearm seemed unbreakable despite his efforts to break free.

"So," Cooper said to a startled Miriya. "Do you know where we could find the nearest stairs?"

Meanwhile, Vansen was contacting the _Arcadia_.

**Bridge**

_**U.S.S. Arcadia**_

"Collaborators?" Joan asked, turning to Narim.

"After the Goa'uld invaded, some of my people allied themselves with them," Narim explained. He shook his had, evidently still finding it hard to believe. "I don't understand why they did it. I always thought we were better than that."

Joan stared at Narim, amazed how a people so advanced could be so naïve. "When we have time later," she told him, "remind me to explain the psychology of foreign occupation to you."

"Dropships are rearmed and exiting the hangar now.," Ford reported.

Joan nodded acknowledgement. "As soon as all the dorsal Ion Cannons have been cleared, send the dropships in to support the Marines," she ordered. "Then we'll start trying to extract ourselves from the dreadnaught."

**Marine Boarding Party**

**Zor's Flagship**

Jogging past a largely intact but inert Ion Cannon, Gunny Apone saw that he was the last one to arrive at this location. He took a quick count of the surviving Marines. Counting himself, he was down to nineteen effectives. Internally, he winced at the additional casualties.

"Vasquez!" he called out, spotting the Marine holding a pistol instead of the normal M4A6. "Where's your weapon?"

"Combat lossed, Gunny," Vasquez replied with a growl. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Hey, Gunny," Hicks called. "Any suggestions on this next obstacle?"

Apone examined the "obstacle". At the hub of the dreadnaught's top side was a huge pit. Nestled within that pit was a normal-looking Ha'tak. The dreadnaught was connected to the Ha'tak by a myriad number of tubes of all shapes and sizes. It looked like the dreadnaught had actually been extruded from the Ha'tak. Given what Apone knew about Goa'uld construction methods, that might actually have been the case.

"There," Apone said, pointing to the apex of the Ha'tak's pyramid structure. "The bridge is there. That's our target, Marines."

"How are we going to get there?" Hudson asked. He eyed the maze of tubes at the bottom of the pit. Fighting in there was going to be nasty.

Apone grinned. The answer should have been obvious. "Flight mode," he said clearly.

His Marines groaned.

**Bridge**

**Zor's Flagship**

"Milord, I am receiving reports that there are Tau'ri infiltrators inside the old Ha'tak," Breetai reported.

"Spare me the details and just destroy them," Zor commanded.

"Yes, milord." Breetai hesitated. "Milord, I feel that I must personally lead the counter attack."

"Go and do what you feel is necessary," Zor replied.

As Breetai departed, Zor thoughts raced. Even with all the improved equipment he had given his Jaffa, Zor had no great confidence that Breetai would be successful. Zor couldn't think of a single instance where Jaffa had managed to successfully repel Tau'ri who had gotten into Goa'uld ships.

That meant his flagship was as good as lost. He needed to escape now and find refuge somewhere. Unfortunately, Dolza's Ha'tak had been destroyed. He couldn't separate the old Ha'tak from the main body of his flagship. Aside from the Tau'ri already being on board, he couldn't be sure that the Tau'ri ship didn't have more of those damned missiles in reserve.

Wait, there was the stolen Tel'tak. It was drifting next to the Tau'ri ship, apparently abandoned. His sensors weren't picking up any life signs from it at all. It was the perfect escape route.

He spotted the Tau'ri soldiers on the outside hull of his flagship. They were jumping across to the old Ha'tak now. Obviously, their intent was to take the bridge. Zor laughed softly to himself. He didn't intend to be here to greet them. But Zor did intend to let his "pet" do the greeting for him.

**Fighter Furball**

It started with one Death Glider breaking off the pursuit. Then a second one followed the first. Then all discipline broke and the remaining thirty six Gliders were fleeing in a panic, attempting to run from those two invulnerable and very deadly Tau'ri fighters. Where they were fleeing to didn't even enter their pilot's minds. They just had to get away.

Eyeing his status readout, Blair let them go. The readout was a mass of yellow and red warning lights and his shield meter was reading just shy of zero. One more hit from any of those Gliders likely would have finished him off.

"Maniac, what's your status?" Blair asked his wingman.

"I'm great, Maverick," Marshall replied. "But I think I need to take my ride to the shop. It's about to give up the ghost."

"Okay, let's head home," Blair agreed. A blue plasma bolt streaked past them. It wasn't the Death Gliders. The dreadnaught's Ion Cannons were still offline, but the smaller tertiary guns were apparently still fully functional. "This might be a problem," Blair muttered as he went into evasive maneuvers again.

**Joint Force Boarding Party**

**Zor's Flagship**

Cooper Hawkes jerked his head back from peeking around the corner. It was well he did, because an instant later, a barrage of yellow and blue energy bolts followed, splashing against the opposing wall of the T-intersection.

"This looks like the right place," Hawkes said unnecessarily. "I count at least half a dozen Jaffa forted up outside the engine room. They're armed with a mix of TERs and heavy staff weapons." He scowled. "Those fortifications don't look improvised. They were definitely made with boarding parties in mind."

"Any forcefields?" Vansen asked.

"Hang on," Cooper replied. He peeked around the corner again, fired a quick burst with his weapon, then jerked back just in time to avoid being hit by another barrage. "Yes."

"Damn, we're going to have to find another way in," Vansen said.

"I'll bet you they have the other entrances forted up too," West replied.

Gloval stepped out of a wall. He and a few other Tollans had been scouting around. "The engine room is completely surrounded by forcefields," he said with a grimace. "There's no way for us to get in."

"There is a way in," Vansen said grimly. "We do a frontal assault. Only problem with that is that I don't think we could survive it. Not with enough people to hold it against counter attack."

"So, we do what?" Fokker asked, rubbing his sore forearm. "Just leave?"

"No can do," Grace said. Her eyes focused on nothing. "We got Jaffa, adult Jaffa this time, coming up behind us. There are lots of them."

"We can't hold the Jaffa off here," Vansen said. "This corridor's too open and we'd have those guards behind us."

"Screw that," Grace said, taking the cylinder from her hip. With the press of a button, the air in front of one end of the strange device began to shimmer and sparkle. "You keep the reinforcements busy; I'll take care of the guards."

"How…" Fokker began.

But before he could finish asking the question, Grace stepped boldly into the intersection, exposing herself fully to the engine room guards. Of course, the guards opened fire.

**Bridge**

_**U.S.S. Arcadia**_

"Sky looks clear of hostiles," Ford reported. "The last of the dorsal Ion Cannons have been neutralized."

"Good, now let's pull our ship out of that dreadnaught," Joan said. "Tell the guns to open fire… carefully." She turned to her pilot. "Devereaux, as soon as the obstruction's clear, pull us out and put us on the dreadnaught's top side."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Guns are firing," Ford said. There was a slight shaking as fire from the _Arcadia's_ point defense turrets struck the dreadnaught at precisely plotted points. Shock from the impact was translated by physical contact into the _Arcadia's_ frame. "No effect."

"What?"

"Uh, ma'am," Hitchcock said. "It looks like the SI field effect is bleeding into the dreadnought's structure where it's physically contacting the Arcadia. Our SI generators are actually reinforcing the hold the dreadnaught has on us."

"Fantastic," Joan muttered. "How do we fix that?"

"We're going to have to shut off our SI fields before trying to shoot off the parts holding us," Hitchcock suggested.

"Then we better hope the skies really are clear of bad guys. If not, anyone waiting in ambush is going to blow us out of the sky." Joan sighed. "Do it."

**Ion Cannon**

**Zor's Flagship**

Finally! Exedor had finally bypassed the damaged targeting computer. He had full manual control of the Ion Cannon. Unfortunately, there was nothing left to shoot at.

True, there were two Tau'ri fighters out there, but they were evading the mass of lesser guns already firing at them. Exedor doubted he could hit them. Exedor decided to withhold his own fire until he was sure he could hit something.

Now if only a big, fat target would only show up.


	10. Chapter 10

**The Battle of Tollana, Part 10**

_**1 July 2015**_

_Ship's Log: I think I can safely say that we've just found the largest forms of organic life to date. They travel around in groups, or at least this group does. The small ones - Dr. Westphalen thinks they're babies – are in the neighborhood of three to five thousand miles in diameter. The big ones average about ten thousand miles across and several are even bigger._

_What was really bizarre is that they look like giant turtles, with elephants on their backs. And on top of the elephants is a flat disc which appears to have standard planetary ecosystems on tip. There even appear to be primitive cities on some of these discs._

_Long range scans indicate that the turtle/elephant/disc combination is all one life form. The disc ecosystem appears to be separate. Unfortunately, we couldn't get closer because of some strange energy field surrounding these creatures. The field appears to be made up of some previously unknown exotic particles that do weird things to the ship's systems._

_Despite objections from the science detachment, I'm not going to take my ship in for closer inspection and risk something critical being disabled. These turtles appear to travel entirely STL, so I've marked their location and vector for a better equipped follow-up investigation._

**7 July 2015**

**Joint Force Boarding Party**

**Zor's Flagship**

Grace stepped into view of the Jaffa guarding the dreadnaught's engine room. Most of the Jaffa were in standard Jaffa armor: a combination of simple steel scale and chain mail. One, probably the leader, wore a Kull breast plate. They all looked startled at Grace's appearance. They held their fire, probably amazed that anyone would be so stupid as to expose themselves like this.

Grace took a step toward them. This seemed to make up the leader's mind. He aimed his TER and fired. The Transphase Eradication Rod fired a phased plasma bolt designed to hit and kill anything that was out of phase with the rest of reality. However, it could still kill anything that wasn't imitating a ghost if not as spectacularly as the Jaffa's regular staff weapons.

Grace contemptuously swatted the blast aside with her sword.

The "sword" had been a birthday present from her husband. He called it a "light saber" even though it was nothing of the sort. The weapon was a basic forcefield generator powered by the same Naquada batteries used in the Marine grav packs. The forcefield generated a solid but weightless sword blade capable of cutting through most materials effortlessly. Anything it couldn't cut through stopped it like a regular sword. Two people dueling with these could actually hold a regular sword fight.

And it looked like a flashlight because the handle had come from one.

Taking their cue from their leader, the rest of the Jaffa opened fire. As she strolled forward, Grace's sword arm moved in an economical blur, deflecting multi-colored plasma bolts harmlessly into ceiling, walls, and floor. As Grace became more familiar with the plasma bolts' properties, she began sending the bolts back at her opponents.

An ordinary human – hell, even a Jaffa or a Goa'uld – would have been unable to match that performance. But Grace Girardi was no ordinary human. Grace was a _Slayer_, a living weapon originally created by the Ancients to combat foes far more fearsome than mere Jaffa. Since high school – since the summer before she had met Joan in fact – Grace had been gifted with enhanced physical and psychic abilities to hunt down the horrors that had infiltrated Earth's human population. Not that there were any such horrors in her hometown of Arcadia, Maryland; they seemed to avoid the place for some reason.

Grace wasn't the strongest Slayer, or the most skilled, or even the fastest. What she was more than sufficed to handle the barrage being thrown at her. The most important thing was that unlike the Marines' guns, Grace could see the plasma bolts coming. And for her, that was all the time in the world necessary to move her sword to intercept them.

The bolts Grace sent back at the Jaffa passed through their protective forcefield without being molested. This forcefield apparently couldn't tell if friendly fire was incoming or outgoing. One Jaffa guard went down, then another. Then the heavy staff weapon was blown off its mounting base. A third Jaffa went down.

When Grace reached the shield, two Jaffa were still shooting at her. A third – the heavy staff gunner – was reaching for a weapon dropped by one of his comrades. Grace side-stepped the last two shots from the Jaffa and drove her sword blade first into the forcefield. The blade penetrated then stuck fast. Grace let go of her sword and stepped back. As sword blade and force field attempted to override each other, the force field turned opaque and "fuzzy", looking not unlike TV static. A couple of glow spots spreading circular ripples appeared; the Jaffa were still firing, but their shots weren't getting through anymore.

The forcefield collapsed. A distant boom and shake indicated its generator dying from the feedback loop. Grace's sword did the same, but its shape channeling the explosion out the ends of the cylinder in twin jets of white hot fire. Standing off to the side and knowing what to expect, Grace was hardly affected. The Jaffa on the other side weren't so lucky; they were momentarily blinded and stunned.

Grace rushed forward.

**Marine Boarding Party**

**Bridge**

**Zor's Flagship**

Demolition charges exploded, taking out the big picturesque window that the Goa'uld so loved so much. An emergency forcefield sprang up to keep the air in everything on the other side, out. Another set of demolition charges took care of that.

Nineteen Marines stormed the now airless bridge, spreading out with weapons ready to cover all approaches. There was no resistance. In fact, the bridge had been completely abandoned as far as they could tell.

The bridge looked fairly typical Goa'uld architecture. There were the all purpose controls right in front of the window. A throne was set at the back with a wide space for guests/audiences/prisoners between it and the controls. The only unusual thing was some weird organic looking art on the wall behind the throne.

"Controls look intact," Vasquez reported. Since she had lost her M4A6, Gunny had assigned her the job of making sure the controls hadn't been damaged by the demolition charges.

"Bridge clear," Hicks reported.

"Alright, Marines," Gunny Apone said. "Hold here for now while I call this in."

"So that's it, man?" Hudson asked, checking behind the throne. "Game over? That is so anticlimactic."

"I don't know about you, Hudson," Hicks said, "but right now, I can handle anticlimactic. Let's not go borrowing more trouble than we have to."

"Aw, c'mon, Hicks," Hudson said, poking the sculpture with his weapon. There was a sparkle of light, as if a force field had just been switched off. "We just fought our way through a bunch of cannon fodder to get here. There should be like a big boss battle at the end of someAAARRRGGGHHH!"

Immediately, all the Marines turned to face Hudson. Something long, black, and shiny had run him through, puncturing both Hudson's front and rear armor just below the rib cage. It soon became apparent what it was. The "sculpture" was unfolding itself, revealing a hideous creature that looked partly insect-like and all armor, claws, and teeth. It was only vaguely humanoid, and Hudson was impaled on the thing's tail. Jaws opened wide on an eyeless face; it might have been roaring at them but there was no air to carry the sound.

The alien took a step forward.

In some people, surprise and shock can be deadly combinations. They can make a man hesitate when action was needed, freeze when he had to move. But the Marine Corps did its best to train that out of its recruits. And those that still had the reaction had been mercilessly weeded out in Darwinian fashion during the assault across the dreadnaught's hull.

Every Marine opened fire, even Vasquez with her dinky, little (in comparison) service pistol.

The alien staggered from the impacts, but continued to charge. The bullets were doing damage, but not fast enough. Something – presumably blood – sprayed from the bullet wounds, burning smoking holes in whatever it touched. One swipe of its claws tossed a Marine across the bridge into a wall. Gaping rents torn in the luckless Marine's armor vented precious air. The returning back blow did the same for Apone, but he was lucky insofar as the claws weren't used. He still had ribs broken, but his vacuum seal was intact. With a swipe of its Hudson decorated tail, the alien bowled over three more Marines.

Vasquez held her ground in a classic shooter's stance. With feet planted slightly more than shoulder width apart and pistol held steady at arm's length in both hands, she pumped round after round into the alien. The slide finally locked to the rear as the alien lunged at Vasquez, mouth wide open. There was no time to reload, no time to even lower the pistol.

Suddenly, the creature was propelled backwards as it was hit by a stream of high velocity tracers shooting over Vasquez's head. The creature landed on the throne then seemed to come apart into a smoking, gooey mess. Only then did all the firing stop.

Vasquez looked over her shoulder. One of the Marine dropships was hovering there.

"Yo!" the dropship pilot called. "Am I late for the party?"

**Bridge**

_**U.S.S. Arcadia**_

"Ma'am, both boarding parties are reporting it," Lieutenant O'Neill said. "Both the dreadnaught's bridge and main engineering have been secured. The Marines who took the bridge have had heavy casualties including Gunny Apone. Casualties are being loaded in Dropship One." He paused. "Corporal Vansen reports no casualties so far but that a counter attack on her position is imminent."

Joan nodded in acknowledgement. "See if any of the bridge Marines are in any shape to reinforce them."

"Hangar deck reports that both our fighters are safely back home," Ford added. "The deck chief's amazed that they're even still able to fly."

"SI fields fully dissipated," Lieutenant Commander Hitchcock reported. "We're ready to begin extraction procedure."

"Do it."

On a display, Joan watched as several carefully placed shots cut away at the twisted metal holding the Arcadia in place.

"Devereaux, start backing us out as soon as we're clear," Jane instructed.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Ah, Captain…" Narim began.

"Lieutenant Colonel," Joan corrected. "Or just Colonel for short."

"Er, yes," Narim said. "I wanted to thank you for helping us out, Colonel Rove. Your actions today have likely freed my people from Goa'uld tyranny. You and SG-1 before you have always stood by us and I'm afraid we didn't properly thank your people before…"

"Hold up, Narim," Joan interrupted. Movement on the tactical display had caught her eye. "Who's on the Tel'tak? I thought Vansen took everyone off it."

**Abandoned Tel'tak**

Zor smiled at the sight of the Tel'tak's interior. The Tollans and Tau'ri had completely abandoned it, leaving the small cargo ship unguarded. They had left him the perfect escape vehicle. Surprise and hesitation would keep them from firing on him until was far too late. He would be in hyperspace long before anyone realized who was on it.

Someday, these upstarts would pay for defying their…

**Ion Cannon**

**Zor's Former Flagship**

There! There was his target! The stolen Tel'tak was fleeing. The rebels were obviously trying to escape the wrath of his god.

Exedor tracked the fleeing vessel, making sure of his aim. He almost left it too late. As the Tel'tak formed a hyperspace window, it was struck by Exedor's ion bolt and exploded in a satisfying fireball.

And then Exedor realized his mistake. Exedor's Ion Cannon was pointed in the wrong direction as the Tau'ri ship rose above his horizon. He spun the turret, furiously trying to target and fire at the Tau'ri ship before its fire killed him.

He was too late.

**Engine Room**

**Zor's Former Flagship**

Luke Girardi worked feverishly. He could here the sound of gun and plasma fire behind him. He was desperately looking for a way to shut the engine room off from the rest of the ship. Unfortunately, whatever Grace had done had completely totaled the room's defenses.

Barging past the defenders, a Jaffa in full Kull armor loomed above Luke. The Jaffa dropped the obviously damaged weapon he had been carrying. It was now useless. The Jaffa reached for Luke with bare – well, gloved anyway – hands. Luke had no illusions that he could fight a Jaffa hand to hand even if the Jaffa had been naked.

Whoa, bad image! Bad mental image!

And then Grace was there. She appeared behind the Jaffa and twisted the helmet a good one eighty. The sharp crack of the breaking neck was lost in the general gunfire.

Luke knew about his wife's abilities. He even knew the real purpose of the organization she worked for. That was why he had built that light saber for her. But it was pretty rare for him to get an up close and personal demonstration of just what she was capable of. Right now, he was extremely thankful to a God he didn't believe in that she had them.

"Luke!" Grace called, tossing him her cell phone. "Joan wants you!"

"Hello?" Luke said into the phone.

"Luke, it's Joan," Joan said unnecessarily. "Do you have control of the engines yet?"

"Not completely," Luke replied. "The Goa'uld here did all sorts of weird things to it. I guess they had to expand it's capabilities to be able to move the…"

"Never mind that," Joan interrupted. "I just need to know one thing: Can you blow the engines?"

"What?" Luke yelped. "Joan, there's women and children on board this ship! Innocent civilians!"

"I know," Joan said, sounding pained. Her voice hardened. "But if you had to, Luke, can you do it?"

"Well, yeah…"

"That's all I needed to know," Joan told him. "Be right back."

Patriotic music began playing.

"She put me on hold," Luke muttered to himself. "I can't believe she put me on hold."

**Outside Engine Room**

**Zor's Former Flagship**

Breetai cursed as yet another assault on the engine room was repulsed. Despite the Kull armor, the Eradication Rods, and traditional staff weapons, he had been unable to make headway against the boarders. The old rumors of Tau'ri battle skills were proving to be all too accurate.

Breetai was a veteran of many campaigns. He had served a number of Goa'uld masters over the years and he had long since stopped believing that they were gods. But they were powerful and there was little he could do to topple them. In fact, Zor had been better than most. Zor let Breetai run the Jaffa with little in the way of interference. In fact, Zor had consulted with Breetai in planning and building of this ship's many defenses.

Not that they had done much good so far.

"Master Breetai!" one of his Jaffa called. He appeared to be one of the survivors of the last assault. Was that a _hand print_ denting his breastplate?

"Jaffa, report!" Breetai barked.

"Master Breetai," the Jaffa said again, holding up a strange device. "The Tau'ri commander wants to talk to you."

Breetai took the strange device gingerly. He quickly discerned how to use it. "I am Breetai, First Prime of Zor," he said into the device. "Who speaks?"

"I am Lieutenant Colonel Joan Rove, commanding officer of the Tau'ri starship _Arcadia_," a woman replied instantly.

"Your warriors fight well, Lieutenant Colonel Joan Rove," Breetai said grudgingly. "However, they are trapped and I can destroy them at my leisure."

"On the contrary, Master Breetai," the Tau'ri commander replied. "It is you that is trapped. Right now, my people control the bridge and the engine room. My ship is free to maneuver and most of your defensive guns…" The ship shuddered slightly. "Correction: all your defensive guns have been disabled or destroyed."

Breetai's mind raced. That was about as untenable a position as he had ever heard.

"What do you want?" he asked harshly.

"I want you and all your people to lay down weapons and surrender," Rove told him. "If you don't, then I will destroy your ship and everyone on board her."

"You will not," Breetai said. "If you do, you condemn your people on board."

"No I won't," Rove replied. "Have you heard of the Asgard, Master Breetai?" Breetai stiffened. Of course, he had. "My ship is equipped with their style of transporter. I can pull my people out at any time I choose. And that gives me a wide range of options to destroy your ship. I can blow the engines, fly it into the sun, or just use my main gun. So choose, Master Breetai. Surrender or death?"

Choose? How could he choose? His wife and children were on board. Although he was certain about his Tollan wife, but Breetai knew his children adored him. They would make excellent warriors one day… assuming they lived to grow up. But what was a warrior without his honor? Where could he go?

As if sensing his inner struggle, the Tau'ri commander spoke again.

"Master Breetai, your warriors have fought well," she said. "You have fought well. No reasonable being could ask for more from you. But you've lost and now is the time to salvage what you can and perhaps, fight another day. If you and your people surrender, I promise on my honor that your people shall be treated well, that none of you will be subject to reprisals from the Tollans…" There was squawk of objection in the background. "…and that you and your people will be transported to the world of your choice."

There was a pause, as if the Tau'ri commander was waiting for him to speak. Breetai said nothing.

"What's your choice, Master Breetai?"

That was not the question. The real question was: Did he believe her?


	11. Epilog

**The Battle of Tollana, Epilogue**

_**10 July 2015**_

_Ship's Log: The_ Arcadia _is heading home for repairs today. The Tollans had offered to repair the damages, but I had to decline. The generals and politicians and politicians back home would have had kittens if I let anyone, even our nominal allies, have an up close examination of some of our more advanced technologies. When I explained this to Narim, I got the impression that he thought it was fair payback given his people's prior treatment of our requests for advanced technology._

_In any case, we're not leaving Tollana undefended. For a start, while we did a number on the dreadnaught's point defense system, its main guns are completely intact. Both my engineers and the Tollans tell me that those guns were more powerful than we thought they were, capable of one-shotting any known ship in existence short of an Atlantis class city-ship._

_In addition, a relief force of three ships arrived from home yesterday:_ Arcadia's _sister ships the_ El Dorado _and the_ Shangri La _as well as the battlecruiser_ Apollo. _The small task force was headed by General Samantha Carter. Of course, I met with General Carter after they arrived and briefed her on the local situation. For what it's worth, she approved my giving the dreadnaught to the Tollans whatever the bean counters and bureaucrats back home might say._

_I also learned that the Free Jaffa Nation had dispatched a ship with a Stargate to pick up the Jaffa who surrendered. I suppose it comes as no surprise that most of the Jaffa and their families decided to join the FJN once they heard about it. Some of the Tollan collaborators – mostly widows of the battle – have elected to emigrate to Earth. What's really surprising is that a number of Jaffa – Breetai being one - seemed to have gone native and elected to stay on Tollana. Narim accepted that last one grudgingly. I think he realizes that his people still have a lot to learn about how to properly defend themselves._

_With the damages we took, it'll take us about five days to get back to Earth. I'm assured that this should be a long, boring trip. Maybe I'll get around to reading the Jessica Fletcher mystery novel that my husband bought for me. I've heard they became all the rage after the author was convicted of mass murder._

**8 July 2015**

**Commanding Officer's Quarters**

_**U.S.S. Arcadia**_

"Oh, God, what a day," Joan muttered exhaustedly as she entered her quarters.

"For what it's worth, Joan," God replied. He was seated at Joan's desk. "You did good today." He glanced at a clock. "Well, yesterday now."

Joan was too tired to be surprised by His presence. In any case, God had a habit of showing up out of the blue since she had been in high school, and as Joan aged, so had His avatars. His current form was the one that Joan had first met Him in. This was the face God used when Joan was in need of a friend, a shoulder to lean on, or just general comfort. Somewhere along the way, Joan had privately tagged this avatar as "Cute Guy God."

"Did I?" Joan asked as she threw herself onto her bunk. "I can't help thinking I might have been able to do better."

"You did as good a job as any other officer in your place could have," God assured her. "Better in fact if you consider the history of boarding Goa'uld ships. Most of those had a tendency to wind up destroyed with all hands."

"I know. I came this close," Joan held her thumb and forefinger less than an inch apart, "to doing just that. I was one decision away from massacring thousands of Jaffa and their families. And You know what? I would have done it too. That scares me. It really scares me."

"But you didn't," God said gently. "You didn't have to. Breetai chose to trust you and surrender."

"I was praying he would," Joan told him. She scrutinized God. "But You know that, don't you? You didn't by chance happen to influence his decision?"

"Of course not, Joan," God said easily. "As you know, I never interfere with free will. If I influenced Breetai, I would have been taking away his free will. Although I will say that Breetai doesn't trust easily. Had he been speaking to any one of Earth's other starship commanders, I dare say that Breetai probably would have gone the other way."

"Huh," Joan grunted thoughtfully. That wasn't something she had thought of before. She filed that away in the back of her mind for later consideration. "What about the collision that started this mess? Two starships running into each other entirely by accident... Don't tell me You had nothing to do with it."

"Okay, I won't tell you," God said cheerfully. "Although, I will say that I happen to know a guy named Murphy, and he doesn't play favorites."

Before Joan could formulate a reply to that outrageous statement, God stood up and went to the door to leave.

"By the way, your brother has spun up the MiniGate," God added as He paused at the door. A light blinked on the wall monitor. "You have a call, Joan. You should take it."

God left as Joan scrambled into the seat He had just vacated. She tapped a control to activate the screen. A familiar and welcome face appeared.

"Adam," Joan said, relieved. "You called."

"You sound surprised, Joan," her husband replied. "It's not like we didn't schedule this whole thing ahead of time."

"Sorry, I've had a busy day," Joan apologized.

"I've heard," Adam said sympathetically. "All the families got informed in advanced. The military's gonna tell the news in a couple days. You can probably expect a three ring circus when you get back."

Joan groaned piteously.

"On the brighter side of things," Adam continued. "I've been seeing someone."

"Oh, really?" Joan said dubiously.

"Oh, yeah," Adam said blithely. "She's younger than I am, most beautiful girl you ever saw. We've been spending all our time together. In fact, she's here right now." Adam reached off screen with both hands and brought the girl into view. "Say, hello, Chrissie."

"Hi, Mommy!"

"Hi, sweetie," Joan replied, a smile blossoming on her face. For the first time in hours, all seemed right in the universe.

* * *

**Appendix**

**Timeline**

Circa 2001 Tollana conquered by Goa'uld

Circa 2008 _Battlestar Galactica _and rag tag fleet arrive at Earth

25 Dec 2014 Girardi family Christmas dinner 

23 Feb 2015 Inventory day for the U.S.S. Arcadia, Luke and Grace join the crew

16 Apr 2015 Ch. 3 Ship Log: Abydos visit, no crossover

21 Apr 2015Ch. 9 Ship Log: _Starman_

2 May 2015Ch. 5 Ship Log: _X-Files_

22 May 2015 Ch. 1 Ship Log: _Smallville_

30 May 2015 Ch. 2 Ship Log: _Lost in Space_

3-5 Jun 2015 Ch. 7 Ship Log: _Buck Rogers_

12 Jun 2015 Ch. 8 Ship Log: _Carmen Sandiego_

19 Jun 2015 Ch. 4 Ship Log: _Battlestar Galactica_

25-26 Jun 2015 Ch. 6 Ship Log: _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_

1 Jul 2015 Ch. 10 Ship Log: Discworld series

7 Jul 2015 The Battle of Tollana

8 Jul 2015 Joan phone home

10 Jul 2015 Epilogue Ship Log: _Murder She Wrote_

15 Jul 2015 _Arcadia's_ estimated time of arrival at Earth

**Cast by Source Material**

_Joan of Arcadia_

Joan Rove nee Girardi, LTC – Commanding Officer of the _Arcadia,_ talks to God

Luke Girardi – _Arcadia's_ exotic physics expert, Joan's younger brother

Grace Girardi nee Polk – _Arcadia's_ security consultant, Luke's wife, Slayer

God – Joan's advisor of sorts, appears in various forms that many see but only Joan recognizes

Adam Rove – Joan's husband

Kevin Girardi – Joan's older brother

_Stargate SG-1_

Samantha Carter, General – Earth relief force commander

Narim – Leader of Tollan Resistance

_Seaquest DSV_

Jonathan Ford, Cmdr – _Arcadia's_ XO

Hitchcock, LtCmdr – _Arcadia's_ Chief engineer

Tim O'Neill, LT – _Arcadia's_ Communications officer, "no relation to Jack"

Kristin Westphalen, Dr – _Arcadia's_ Science Dept head

Lucas Wolenczak – _Arcadia's_ computer systems expert, network admin

_Aliens_

Gorman, LT – _Arcadia's_ Marine OIC

Apone, Gunnery SGT – _Arcadia's_ Marine NCOIC

Dwayne Hicks, CPL – Marine

William Hudson, PFC – Marine

Vasquez, PVT - Marine

_Space: Above and Beyond_

Shane Vansen, CPL – Marine squad leader

Nathan West, PFC – Marine

Cooper Hawkes, PVT - Marine

_Wing Commander_

Jeanette Devereaux, CPT – pilot, callsign Angel

Todd Marshall, LT – pilot, callsign Maniac

Christopher Blair, LT – pilot, callsign Maverick

_Robotech_ (names only)

Zor – Goa'uld in charge of Tollana occupation

Breetai – Zor's First Prime

Khyron – Jaffa guard

Exedor – Jaffa gunner

Dolza – Jaffa Ha'tak commander

Gloval – Tollan Resistance

Fokker – Tollan Resistance, pilot

Miriya – Tollan Collaborator

_Indiana Jones_ series

Jones, Dr. – _Arcadia's_ archaeologist

Original Character (!)

Christine Rove – Daughter of Adam and Joan


End file.
